Autumn in Dragon Age
by Blablover5
Summary: To celebrate fall I have a bunch of short Dragon Age stories for you. It's a modern setting as the various companions celebrate fall as only they can. There will be snuggling on the couch, running from scary ghosts, and PSLs.
1. Chapter 1

A shriek erupted behind me, the scream so potent in my ear the air around me turned white. It didn't originate from the ghouls, goblins, and witches darting around us but the man with fingers burrowing into my shoulders. His hands trembled, shaking my much shorter stature in the process as we turned a corner and came face to face with a werewolf.

I braced myself for another scream, but he seemed to have moved beyond that to the point of silent terror. A black eye hidden below the pile of fur rolled up to us, the jaws snapping for my fingers which I waved politely and moved us on. The werewolf seemed upset that I didn't give much more of a reaction while I guided us into the next chamber.

Which was when he went off again, twice as loud as a foghorn.

"Shit, Alistair," I shouted, my hands flying up to my ears to protect them. White fog blanketed the tight room of plywood up to my waist. As I spun to face him, the oppressive fog twirled in a circle like I had an invisible skirt on.

I expected to find the six foot three blonde goof to wear a big fat smile, maybe chuckle at how he kept nearly getting me to jump. But those usually melting brown eyes were white, the no-longer smiling lips were tugged up into a rictus of terror. He was really scared.

A laugh rolled in my throat at the idea and I pointed towards the latest spooky creature before us. "What's the problem? That's not scary."

"It's a blighted skeleton!" he shrieked, prodding at a pair of animated bones sitting at a table playing cards.

"It's plastic," I sighed. From behind I heard the next group racing to catch up with us; a mob of that pre-teen age who were shrieking almost as much as the grown man I came with. "Come on," I tipped my head onward into the room of tattered spiderwebs.

The cheap stuff most people wad up in their bushes stretched clear across the room. Black light gave it a haunting glow, the entire room radiating as if it were the site of some alien crash. Once again the fingers dug into my shoulder, practically pinching blood flow off as I trekked further on.

With a sigh in my voice, I said, "We didn't have to come here. I mean, if you're really scared."

"I'm not," he cried, his voice cracking as his head whipped back and forth like a vengeful metronome. On the third measure Alistair's eyes landed on me and he gulped, "Okay, maybe a little."

"Why'd you even suggest we come here if you hate this?" I asked while bending over to lift up some fallen webbing and walk under. It slipped from my fingers and the taut band bounded into Alistair's unbendable chest. His manic stares narrowed down at the string of cheap nylon as if he expected another witch or clown to pop out.

"Because…" he groaned, hauling the nylon over his tall head so he could duck under with me into the pitch black walkway, "you like 'em."

 _Really?_ I'd never had any guy care enough to want to do what I wanted, especially if it freaked him out to the point of shrieking. A blush burned up my cheeks even as I had to balance on the sliding floor below us. This time, the hands that'd been gripping for dear life to my shoulders kept me on my feet. Alistair's longer stride allowed him to straddle both tipping boards with ease.

"Plus, ya know, they say that getting the chills, and the shakes, and the screaming until she leaps in your lap is a great way to get a girl to want to…to um…"

I spun in place, eyeing him up even with only a pinprick of starry light to guide us. "Seriously? That's why?"

His eyes wouldn't meet mine, only darted around the place and refused to stop. "Something about adrenaline, hearts pumping, sweat beading up in all those…places. Um…"

With a scoff, I turned on my heel. "Nice try, but it's not gonna happen. I don't get scared."

The midnight darkness broke to a yellow strobe pulsing against my eyes. I squinted at the assault, my fingers running along the wall as I turned a corner. Twisting over my shoulder, I spoke to Alistair, "Besides I…"

A flash of metal, the smell of gasoline burning, and the grind of a gunning engine shattered the silence. From behind Alistair's shoulders, as if emerging from the abyss, came a man with no face and in his hands the roaring chainsaw primed and squealing to splinter flesh and bone. My eyes blanked, a scream building in my lungs as I twisted away from the threat and ran. Feet pounded into the sawdust, kicking up mulch in my wake as the chainsaw maniac pursued us both.

 _Please! No!_ I skidded into the turn, praying to reach the exit sign. A drum kit bounded about in my veins, my heart squeezing into a vice as I struggled for the promise of a door. Incoherent babble broke from between my lips, my head whipping around to try and see anything beyond the pressing darkness. A hot roar of wind splattered against my cheek and I turned to spy another chainsaw whipping past my face.

The scream I'd had buried in my lungs ripped free, sending the second maniac flinging back in surprise. With my eyes straining against the black press of death, I held my palms out flat and splattered into the door. It must have been enough as cool air, tinged with the promise of open cornfields and freedom erased the stench of gasoline and death.

My feet slowed but didn't stop until my waist bounded into a guard rail. Gulping in the free night's sky, I had to wipe away the tears in my eyes to see the stars.

"Hey," a hand rubbed gentle circles from my shoulder down to my back. "You okay?" Alistair sounded really spooked.

A chuckle rose in my gut at the thought then grew exponentially. The laughter evaporated the fear lodged in my throat into something else. I pivoted to him, my arms happy to envelope around his hay-flecked hoodie. Alistair's concerned eyes crinkled at the edge, his face reacting to my laughter even as he seemed worried he might need to call someone for help with the crazy lady.

Rising on my tiptoes, my hand ruffled through Alistair's scraggly scruff. I tipped his head down, his mouth still flat in confusion, until I crushed my lips to his. Heat boiled through my veins, my heart pounding like a bass drum to send every vibrating rush through all parts of my body. Especially the lower bits.

With a smirk, I whispered into his ear, "I guess it works after all." Alistair smiled wide at that thought. He cupped both hands to my cheeks, cradling my face as he returned for more ravenous kisses. The pre-teen group behind us burst free, giggling and shouting about how they weren't scared at all, and paying no attention to the two near adults making out in the back.

"So," I said. My hands folded with his fingers as I leaned out to take in a view of the rest of the grounds. "Should we hit the second haunted house or…?"

Alistair's hands scooped around my waist. Without any strain, he hefted me off my feet. When I landed on his shoulder, my feet bounding against his stomach, he placed one hand over my ass for balance. I laughed at his exuberance, the man sprinting to reach the parking lot. "Home it is," I shouted as we left the haunted park behind. There was much better amusement awaiting us there.


	2. Chapter 2

A chill nipped at my toes chasing away the lull of a light sleep. I moaned, tugging my naked feet back under the slipped blanket. It was the weekend, I wasn't needed anywhere, and there was no reason for me to welcome the perky sun prodding through the window. I stretched to yank the pillow over my face when my hand landed on the spot beside me.

A different chill startled me out of my warm nest and up to my knees. The other half of the bed was empty. Not even a hint that anyone shared it with me through the night, just a blank space where a naked body had been.

 _What were you expecting?_ I tugged my fraying blanket around my shoulders like a cape and hunkered tighter to my chest. Furiously, I rubbed at the cheap mascara gluing my eyelids together.

 _You picked him up at a bar. Or a club. One of those._

His charm lit up the dark room damn near blinding me. Fuck knew I couldn't turn down that smooth accent, or the smile. The fact he was also carved like sin itself given form doomed me from the start.

Stupid of me to even expect someone like that to stick around for the morning after. I reached for my phone which had tumbled to the floor in the throes of the after-party. Maybe I got his number. Because a harried text at 9 in the morning from the woman he just left sleeping in bed would in no way come across as crazy. Still…

As my fingers swept over the floorboard, hoping to excavate the phone without my body having to leave the warm bed, from the edge of my smokey-smeared eye I caught the bedroom door creeping inward. A scream rolled in my throat, my fingers fishing for a blanket to cover up or a bat to nail the assailant with, when a man in a hunter green tight t-shirt, tan leather jacket, and the skinniest jeans you ever saw strolled in.

His kissable lips pouted as those deep brown eyes caught me about to drop a foot to the floor. "Ah, curses. I'd hoped to wake you with a kiss and the intoxicating aroma of…" With a cheeky grin, Zevran extended a pair of white coffee cups. I instantly recognized the black and tan bull symbol of the cafe down the street from my place. It was my go-to caffeine fix.

"You…" My poor, raw-rubbed eyes blinked furiously in both confusion and to drum up enough tears to unstick the mascara. "You got coffee?"

He padded across the floor as if floating, his offering extended towards me, but I was locked in confusion. Venom still pumped through my veins at the assumption he ran off the second he woke, but it was to bring me coffee?

"I am afraid that I've become incapable of sleeping in past dawn. Hazards of the job," Zevran explained. "So I thought what better use of my time than waiting in line behind all the dead-eyed parents shuffling off to Toddler Fight Club, or whatever they do with their offspring on autumn mornings."

A chuckle rolled through my chest at the thought, which yanked those shining brown eyes from my face down to my naked breasts. Burning started at my stomach and creeped higher as I realized I was fully nude while he was fully clothed. But the shame at such a faux pas evaporated as Zevran's eyes didn't leer but smile. Approval radiated from him while he plopped down upon the edge of my bed and thrust the gift into my fingers.

The heavenly aroma of a full roast bean, rich spice, and mornings wafted into my nose. I took another deep whiff before diving in. As the coffee dripped down my throat, my languid brain caught on to what, out of the myriad of options, he ordered. My lips twisted into a wry smile as I turned to the man who bought it specifically for me. "Pumpkin spice?"

Zevran paused from his turn at drinking no doubt an americano or plain black to raise an eyebrow. Slowly, he pivoted his head out the window that was framed with red leaves about to tumble from their branches. "It seemed a wise bet," was his guarded answer.

"Damn," I said, taking another swig, "I feel called out." The hot liquid chased away the reminder that a near stranger was sitting in my bedroom sharing coffee. Wiping away the plop of foam that fell into the dimple beside my mouth, I admitted, "Though, I do own a couple pairs of yoga pants."

"So I noticed," he purred. One hand holding his cup steady, Zevran crawled across the bed on his knees until we met eye to eye. His free fingers rubbed at my leg hidden beneath the blanket as his eyes burned with the same desire that drew me to him the night before.

Butterflies stampeded in my stomach, and on an impulse I brought my cup to my lips between us, as if hoping to dim the intensity of his hunger. But those brown eyes held me in their sway even as I took a long drink of the cinnamon-nutmeg blend. I stared back, my eyes watering to keep him in focus.

As the cup slipped down to my lap, Zevran lunged forward, lips ravenously consuming mine. Bitter, black coffee coated his tongue, which I greedily lapped up. No doubt my all-sugar concoction would sweeten him in the exchange. His free hand lifted from the safe blanket zone of my thigh up to the partially unobscured hip.

Pulling away from the deep kiss, Zevran whispered, "There are few in the world as delectable as you." The palm dipped into my waist, skirting higher towards my exposed breasts, but the curious fingers paused at the top of my ribs.

My body begged for his hands to roam higher, to circle over every inch of me as they had the night before. But my brain was scampering in fear from that impossible compliment. "No, that's…" I gulped. "You're kidding."

"Why would I joke of such a thing?" For the first time, it seemed as if the laughter evaporated from his voice, his soft eyes sharpening to steel. "I believe you are beautiful. Intriguing. Worthy of my undying curiosity. A divine temptation." He worried his palm up over my arm, working the slack muscle while his line of sight dipped over my body. "And I," Zevran breathed in my ear, "have never been able to say no to temptation."

Wrapping my hand around his jacket, I tugged him to me. The force must have surprised him as we both went tumbling down, Zevran's reflexes keeping him from smashing my chest or crushing the cup. My palm found its way inside the jacket, wandering down to the ass hidden inside the denim.

A slow chuckle rumbled in my ear, Zevran moaning as I ransacked what of his body I could reach. His famished eyes took in my face while he used his little finger to draw swirls over my décolletage. "What of the coffee? It will grow cold." Even with that thought, he bent down, lips pressing coffee-scented kisses to the tops of my breasts.

"That," I groaned, placing my pumpkin spice latte on the ground. Both my hands quickly filled with the man losing his clothing in record time. "…is what microwaves are for."


	3. Chapter 3

Swish-swish-swish. The soul affirming aroma of leaves crisping in the autumn sun filled my nose as I bent down to collect an armful. Reds, browns, yellows, and oranges all crinkled in my hands. The pile threatened to tumble, but I shifted, quickly regaining control as I turned to add it to the mass of yard waste.

In doing so, I caught the laborious turn of a page. The book's owner reclined upon a cedar lawn chair that'd have to be put up soon for winter. He'd taken his time to pour a rather convoluted concoction and would stir the straw clockwise when not flipping the pages of his book. Not once did he glance up towards me, nor offer his assistance.

I tugged a leather work glove off with my teeth and used the free hand to wipe the well-earned sweat from my brow. Still nothing. A groan fumbled from my lips, and with exaggerated effort I reached behind to cup the small of my back in a labored stretch. He didn't even shift from the noise.

"Are you going to do nothing but sit there all day, Dorian?" thundered from my lips as I glared at the man stretched out as if I were a hired gardener.

"I believe there were plans to shower later, which," he sniffed the air as if he could smell me clear across our yard, "I suggest you look into."

"Ha!" The laugh escaped because it was better than whacking him over the head with the rake. "Is there nothing you fear more than dirt and sweat?"

"I'd put bears higher on that list," those sonorous, velvety, sex-turned-into-a-voice words tried to burrow under my skin and tickle the funny bone. But I'd been scrounging in the piles of tumbled leaves and dead branches for hours while he sat there sipping on his cocktail without a care in the world.

Hurling both gloves to the ground and leaning the rake against a trunk, I turned to the man who was fishing around for the straw with his tongue. "You live here, you know."

"Truly? Here I thought I simply allowed my belongings to enjoy an extended vacation in your drawers."

"Would it kill you to help me with the leaves?" I exasperated, wincing as my voice crept higher into whine territory.

Dorian finally let the book slip down, his cultivated eyebrow rising as he took in my pathetic form. Tousling his waxed mustache a moment, he mused, "Yes, I believe it would. I'm deathly allergic to yard work of all variety. Besides, I already help plenty around here."

"Oh?"

"Who does that dreaded cooking you can't stand? Or the laundry?"

I scoffed, rising higher on my toes, "Only because you insist I'll ruin your shirts."

"They are silk, hand embroidered. You cannot simply hurl such a treasure in with your pile of stained denim, hit random buttons, and not expect a disaster." He was in full on fussy mode, or pretending to be so I'd back off. It was only one bloody shirt and I paid him back. Eventually. God did he have expensive taste in clothes, food, wine. Damn near everything but men.

"So? That's two things," I huffed. My arms extended to the expansive backyard in the midst of a powerful shedding after the winds whipped through. "This is as much your problem as it is mine."

"How so?" Dorian sighed, worrying his shoulders into the chair I'd stained before the summer set in. "When I agreed to this arrangement I don't remember asking for the trees."

"What?"

"Get rid of them for all I care. Bulldoze the mess down, then you won't have to whinge about scraping their dead leaves off the grass. Regardless, it is not my problem." He lifted the book higher, clearly hoping to end the conversation.

I eyed up the first of twenty bags I'd already collected for the compost heap. All my sweat, my blisters, my pain were poured into those paper bags. And there was Dorian, as fresh as a summer daisy. Free to enjoy the clean air, the cool breeze, the yellowing grass under his toes, and the shade of those trees he claimed to have nothing to do with.

My hands snatched up the entire bag stuffed to bursting with red and yellow maple leaves. I made it another step closer before I asked myself if this was wise. Dorian didn't even turn his head at the sound of my approach, his eyes burrowing into the dry text. How relaxed and rested he looked, reclining back on this beautiful autumn day.

With a fast spin, I upended the entire bag onto his gelled head. Leaves tumbled through the air like a paper shredder gone berserk, Dorian blanketing from my view. I could only catch the sight of a snarling lip, or a wild eye as he realized the tumble of fall wasn't about to give up anytime soon.

"What in the…" he cursed, the book flying from his fingers as he spun on the chair to come eye to eye with me.

His cheeks flushed in shock, his lips pursed in clear annoyance bordering on anger. And his eyes, those endless pools I'd be forever shocked to find sharing a bathroom mirror with, deepened at my audacity. I read the "How dare you?!" written across his face.

Before he could form the first 'h' of his admonishment, I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to my lips. Dorian's pout softened but didn't melt entirely. The force in his kiss drove me wilder, my blistered fingers wafting through his soft hair as I lapped my tongue into his mouth.

The taste of rum pinged first, but as I fell further into the man, the spice, the refinement, the pounding heart secreted away from nearly all flared across my lips. Even exhausted with his antics I couldn't help but love him. Though, he did deserve the leaf shower.

Dorian broke from my kiss in order to nuzzle his always clean-shaven face against my nest of stubble. For all his nose-turning at dirty hands and sweaty brows he certainly enjoyed the feel of a hairy man both scratching up his cheeks and rutting around in his bed.

I trembled as he drew his questing fingers under my jeans.

"You are aware of what this means?" Dorian whispered, his fingernails scraping down the back of my shirt. _Legs twisted together, palms sliding downward, mouths sucking upon tender flesh._ My lips parted, ready to beg for any of the options dancing through my imagination.

Dorian got a handful of my ass and all my attention. His eyes blazed beside mine, hot breath tickling through my scruff as I waited for his suggestion. Suddenly, red and yellow splattered into my face. The mass fell quickly, leaving me to blink in confusion as Dorian danced back.

He fished both arms deep into a second bag of leaves, loading up his ammo as he shouted, "War!"


	4. Chapter 4

Arms enveloped my weary body, my head cushioned by both the reedy chest below and the cream sweater wrapped around it. While he held the shared book in my lap, I couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to read the words. So Solas read them aloud for both of us.

" _'Go, sit upon the lofty hill, And turn your eyes around, Where waving woods and waters wild Do hymn an autumn sound.'_ "

A sigh rattled in my lungs. The gentle lap of his words rolled through the poem the same a lake's waves caressed my ankles by summer's day. Solas, however, heard it differently. He paused in his recitation, his eyes drifting down to me. "Are you tired?"

"No," I insisted, barely peeping through my weary eyelids. My body may be exhausted, seemingly at all times now, but my mind ached for sustenance.

He shifted, tugging the coverlet higher up my shivering chest. My toes, swaddled in a pair of thick, fluffy socks, peeped out from the move. It caused Solas to frown, his eyes burning into the edge of the risen blanket as if that could yank it back down.

"Keep reading," I insisted, nuzzling deeper into his arms.

" _'The summer sun is faint on them — The summer flowers depart — Sit still — as all transform'd to stone, Except your musing heart…'_ "

Elizabeth Barret Browning, one of my favorites to chew upon during rainy autumn days. We'd often sit at the breakfast nook, our coffee cooling forgotten while absorbed in private poets as our fingers entwined atop the table. We used to.

As he drifted to the second verse, my mitten-covered fingers rose from the blanket to caress his cheek. Even through the padding I lost myself in the click and flush of his jaw gifting voice to the dusty words pinned to the page. So close to my ear, his gentle voice softened to that of a whisper, the warm breeze wafting against my skin.

I must have made a sound as Solas paused in his recitation to ask, "Do you feel uncomfortable? Are you queasy?"

We both glanced to the barely eaten soup turned ice cold on a tray beside our beaten-in couch. A blush of shame rose at my being unable to finish something he put so much time into, but I shook it away. Shook all the concerns weighing upon my heart away and told him, "No. I'm perfect here. Please."

"Very well," he said, looking prepared to leap off the couch and carry me whenever I'd need. But as I drew my second hand against his chest, the rigidity of his muscles melted away and he leaned back against the armrest of the couch as if he never intended to leave.

" _'Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth That flesh and dust impart: We cannot bear its visitings, When change is on the heart.'_ "

My arm grew weary from the small stretch, comforting fingers tumbling off his cheek to burrow into my lap. I winced as an itch grew under the winter's cap tugged nearly to my eyebrows.

Where my eyebrows once were.

Too exhausted to reach for it, I tried rubbing the back of my head against Solas' sweater. His reading paused, no doubt wondering what I was up to, when he snaked his fingers under the cap and drew the nails over my naked scalp.

" _'Gay words and jests may make us smile, When Sorry is asleep; But other things must make us smile, When Sorrow bids us weep!'_ "

"I'm sorry," I gulped, my swallowed tears finally breaching their levies. I didn't even have the strength to wipe them away, forced to ruminate in the roll of stinging salt.

Lowering the book, Solas tried to gaze down at my face, but I buried as deep as I could to his chest. With a gentle grace, his palm cupped my cheek and his thumb caressed away the tears. "Whatever for?"

"I…I ruined your plans. Your…forcing you to…you can't want this."

He fell silent, his head lifting higher to stare out the window into a world preparing for winter's embrace. This life — of medicine, exhaustion, ferrying, pain, sickness, bile — all of this was too much to ask of anyone. To put upon anyone. It was cruel of me to expect so much time, and effort, and life while unable to contribute anything in return.

"Nonsense," Solas whispered as if reading my thoughts. My tear-stained eyes raised up to him. "You have ruined nothing. And you have nothing to apologize for. Ever."

"But…"

"You are here, as am I. And we make due with what we have. No matter the hurdles strewn in our path, which are no fault of yours, I will not place you down."

A shudder racked my depleted body, but it was a smile that burned on my lips. From his tenacity, from his unshakable certainty. From his unending support even as direness crept like frost over the hills.

"Now," Solas smiled himself, his hand returning to the book, "I believe I should return to reading before your nap."

I nodded along, smearing the last of my tears upon his sweater.

" _'The dearest hands that clasp our hands, — Their presence may be o'er;'_ " A sputter burned in his throat, Solas adjusting as his fingers clung tighter to the book. His eyes swept over the next lines and he voiced them with a bone-shaking warble, " _The dearest voice that meets our ear, That tone may come no more!'_ "

He shook his head, his invisible tears wiped away as he moved to close the book. "This is hardly the poem to be reading—"

I sat forward, reciting what came next. " _'Youth fades, and then, the joys of youth, Which once refresh'd our mind, Shall come — as, on those sighing woods, The chilling autumn wind.'_ "

The shuttering of the poem paused, but Solas appeared entombed, his limbs stone as he stared not upon the words but my eyes. I drew my tongue over my cracked and bleeding lips to recite, " _'Hear not the wind — view not the woods; Look out o'er vale and hill. In spring, the sky encircled them — the sky is round them still.'_ "

Lips pressed to the back of my cap. It was one of many the kindly ladies from a knitting circle donated to the hospital. A penguin graced the front and the entire cap bore a stripe of plum purple. I was instantly enamored with the kitsch of such an ensemble. Solas, of the crisp, cool-lines, white and tans to decorate his restrained lifestyle, would hand clean and dry it for me every morning. I never need go without my cap or fear the chill as long as he watched over me.

Autumn falls across the world; its thievery of summer's beauty leaving behind a new splendor. The bursts of reds, yellows — of entire forests glowing with fire before the summer snow rips them away — read as a promise. Though things be bleak now, though pain and sorrow haunt your path, hope is planted in the ground. And, one day, it will shed its winter coat and rise to the sun.

With one hand wrapped around my ailing stomach, Solas finished the poem, " _'Come autumn's scathe — come winter's cold — Come change — and human fate! Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound, Can ne'er be desolate.'_ "


	5. Chapter 5

A tinny scream broke from the flickering screen before me and was answered by a more guttural one beside. I glanced over by the glow of the flatscreen just as Merrill buried her face in her hands.

"Tell me when it's safe to look," she gasped.

The Mistress of Ceremonies patted poor, shivering Merrill's knee and assured her, "Don't worry, Kitten. I will…ooh!" Isabela's attention snapped back to the movie. The scythe wielding maniac swung his weapon of choice hard through the neck of the corrupt mayor, blood splattering against the screen in response. Merrill whimpered at the squishy sounds, but dutifully kept her eyes locked away behind her palms.

Leaning back on the couch, Isabela crossed her legs loosely so the knee butted against mine. Even with only the low light of the old exploitation film I could read on her face that she did it on purpose. Well, two could play at that game. Yanking my wine glass off the table, I took a slow sip and balanced the bottom on her lower thigh. Rather than get a cross reaction, Isabela scooted an inch closer to me.

"Oh come on!" Aveline, perched upon the edge of the only recliner in Isabela's den, shouted at the shoddy movie. "What is she doing?" she exasperated at the requisite heroine screaming her head off and running up the stairs.

"Does the battering ram not approve?" Isabela baited Aveline, her eyes burning into the woman still in her uniform.

"Of you? Never. Of this movie… No one is this idiotic. Who runs higher into a house when there is a means of escape right beside you? It is a wonder this woman made it past the age of five."

"It's a movie, Aveline," I tried to intervene before any potential fight broke out. This was one of Isabela's favorites in a long list of exploitation and gore films, though she didn't seem too perturbed by Aveline's criticism. With one hand wrapped motheringly around Merrill's shoulders, Isabela tipped her beer back until it was perpendicular with the ground.

A snort broke from the critic and she shook her ginger head. "Call. The. Police! There is a phone right beside you! I cannot understand this. Why, in these kinds of movies, do they never think to get in contact with emergency services?"

"Because it'd end the movie faster?" I threw out, wincing as Isabela placed the empty beer bottle on the table.

She swiped at the side of her mouth and pivoted towards Aveline. "What good would the cops do? Whenever one of your kind is on screen they always wind up butchered like a hog and strung up by their intestines. Plus, the brain dead fools never believe there's a killer on the loose until their own head's got a candle shoved up the neck hole to make a Cop O'lantern." Isabela flashed her teeth while grinning wide, "Trick or treat."

Aveline scowled at the thought, but returned to the movie. We fell silent watching the point of view footage of someone running hell bent through trees. "Can I look?" mewled Merrill.

"You're good, Kitten," Isabela said.

As she shed her protective fingers, Merrill smiled, "Oh good. That's really rather pretty and…"

A severed hand came flying from off screen. Isabela quickly clamped her hand over poor Merrill's eyes. "Sorry, forgot about that jump-scare. You okay?"

"Uh huh," Merrill nodded dumbly, once again hiding behind her safety net.

"Why do you come to these if you don't like scary movies?" I asked.

She shuddered, either from my line of questioning or the chainsawing and wood chipping going on on screen. "I like the movies. I just don't like blood, or gore, or screaming, or scares, or monsters, or ghosts."

"So…you hate everything about a scary movie but the fifteen minutes or so of plot exposition?"

Nodding her head, Merrill said, "But it's a really exciting fifteen minutes."

"You are…" I shook the thought away, not wanting to crush our little butterfly. "You do you, Merrill."

Leaving Merrill to hunker down in her version of watching a scary movie, I nudged my shoulder against Isabela's. She twisted her face towards me, her teeth flickering the reflection of the killer inching closer to a screaming woman. I leaned nearer as if to whisper something in her ear, when Isabela's head snapped to the screen.

"Oh! Pointless panty shot. Everyone take a drink!"

Isabela passed me a shot glass already sloshing over with whiskey. Digging my toes into my shoes, I tipped it back. A burn gouged up into the sinuses. The alcohol chewed apart my throat better than the hell hounds from the first movie. Izzy took hers down fast, barely shaking off the pain. We both looked up to watch Aveline, still on the edge of her seat, tip her own shot glass back. She drank the rotgut as if it was water, her eyes peeled at the action.

Sharing a look, Isabela and I both shrugged.

"What about me?" Merrill called. She draped her entire forearm over her face and slapped her hand into the coffee table covered in glasses.

"Hold on, Kitten," Isabela said. Picking up a shot glass, she placed it in Merrill's hand. "Keep it steady," she ordered and, instead of picking up the half empty whiskey bottle, Isabela hoisted up a bottle of grape juice. As she filled Merrill's glass, she winked at me.

"There ya go, drink up."

Merrill slammed it back as if she was the hardest drinker in the group. A giggle erupted from her juice shot and she burped. "Excuse me. I dare say I might be a little drunk."

"You can always sleep it off in my spare bed," Isabela said while corking the fake wine and hiding it where Merrill wouldn't see.

"None of the liquor at the Hanged Man tastes as good as the stuff you get," Merrill mused to herself, then she hiccuped. "Is it time for another shot?"

"Not yet," Isabela said.

Turning away from them back to the movie, I scoffed as the heroine expertly cranked on a chainsaw. "I guess in between all of those virgin choir practices and perfect-attendance honor-roll studies she found time to take a 'chopping off limbs with a chainsaw' class."

"What? You didn't have those in high school, Hawke?" Isabela nudged me in the ribs, her forearm glancing against my breast. I assumed it an accident until I caught the sparkle in her eye. An idiotic grin tried to take my lips as I realized for all her shielding of Merrill, she wasn't the one to catch Isabela's eye.

"Hmph," Aveline grumbled, shaking me from my observation. "It'd be more practical to cut the legs off at the thigh. Femoral artery, you fool!"

"Speaking from personal experience?" Isabela cut back with.

"No, only common anatomical sense."

I sighed, "He's an undead demon cast out of hell. They don't bleed out. Probably don't even have arteries."

Aveline snorted at the thought, shaking her head from such nonsense. She was not one to give into fantasy without a lot of arguing. We damn near had to chain her down to watch part of Lord of the Rings, and she refused to believe that trees could 'perambulate.'

"I don't get why you watch these, Isabela?" Aveline turned to their ghost host.

"What's not to love? The excitement, the blood, the screams, the naked women." She swiveled her head to me and waggled her eyebrows at that one.

Aveline sighed, "Yes, and in all of these it's the promiscuous tart who gets perforated through the ribcage first. Doesn't seem like you'd last too long."

I sat up higher, prepared to have to either pluck Isabela off Aveline or vice versa, but Izzy fell silent and contemplative. "It's not really about the survivor at the end. They're always dull as plastic silver. The real draw is the monster, someone who's been wronged by the world, people, the devil himself. Who's been tossed off, hated, feared its whole life, and finally takes the chance to get its revenge."

Isabela turned to Aveline, the pair locked in a glare, "That's what I really get out of these movies. The monster taking justice where there was none to be given."

A smile twisted up Aveline's lips as she digested Isabela's thought. Hefting up her beer, she declared, "To justice."

"To monsters," I answered with, raising my own beer.

Isabela fished up hers and declared, "To getting my girls together to bring the bastards down."

We all took a drink just as the heroine grabbed a revolver and fired once, causing the monster to slump to the ground. "Come on," Aveline shouted at the TV, "empty your clip into it and…what are you doing? Don't drop the gun! Get back there and finish the job!"

As she yelled at the movie for failing in logic, I turned to find Isabela watching me. "Do you like scary movies?" she whispered, her voice in that shed-all-panties range.

"Only if the monster's really pretty," I answered, leaning closer to her.

"Guys?" Merrill piped up from the end of the couch, "Can I look yet?"


	6. Chapter 6

After putting the tractor in idle, I turned in the duct-taped seat to look over my shoulder. "All right, everyone. We're here!"

Normally, I'd have kids leaping off of the straw-bales the moment the trailer tires stopped turning and threatening to chip a tooth, but this group was nothing but adults. Various ages and the like, so they took their time rising to rickety knees and shuffling towards the iron stairs. Still, there was a bit of a hop in their step when they hit the cornstalk strewn grounds and dashed off towards the pit deeper into the clearing.

I tapped my fingers on the wheel, singing a damn commercial that lodged in my head before this trip began, while waiting. By the end of the second round I glanced over my left shoulder to watch the leader helping what had to be the last of the crew down. Reaching forward to revive the temperamental tractor, I caught a blank darkness on the edge of my eye.

Huddled in the corner, sat a body trying to blend into the shadows. His legs stretched clear out into the straw-flecked bed of the trailer, but he kept his arms hidden deep inside the hoodie.

Turning to face the path ahead of me, I said, "This is the last stop if you want to get off."

I could hear whoever it was shuffling in place, his boot heels banging against the metal of the trailer bed as he sat up higher. But he didn't rise to his feet, nor walk towards the stairs. A few laughs broke out from within the clearing, the group having a grand time running around in the field. The bonfire itself was hemmed in by a mess of field corn, which quickly became the place to host the corn maze. Kids had a habit of finding it fun to full body run at stalks, rip off ears, and just in general be little shits unsupervised by their parents.

At least this group was more civilized, only a few of the adults yanking at the corn stalks to see what would happen.

"So," I said to the horizon haloing from the final sprays of red and orange sunlight, "I'm guessing you're not gonna join them."

"No." The voice rumbled like thunder on the open plain and I shivered. My eyes hunted through the sky as if there should be clouds moving in instead of the open as a bowl vista.

I glanced once more at the group of people finally gathering in a circle. Their leader had them all holding hands, heads tipped down in prayer. With a shrug, I twisted the wheel of the tractor and lurched it and the trailer forward. "Okay." As I drove us off the beaten path deeper into the cornfield, I heard the man scrabble deeper into his seat.

"Just so you know," I said over my shoulder, my body lurching as the tires managed to find every muddy pit in the back field, "I wasn't gonna head back to the front gate."

Nothing answered me. With a shrug, I guided the tractor towards the massive turn around. While the tires found the tried and true ruts circling the edge, I glanced at the mass of sunflowers that sprouted up in the middle of our homemade roundabout.

As I got the tractor and trailer fully turned about and ready to return towards the group, I hit the brake. Normally, I'd leave it idling as this damn thing needed a prayer to start on a good day. But, glancing back at the dark shadow glaring into nothing, I killed her dead. If worse came to it, I could call my good-for-nothing brother to help revive it.

The sound of the engine cutting out must have shaken the silent man from his funk as his head rose. Nestled in the shadows of the cornfield it was hard to make out much, but his shock of snow-white hair practically glowed even in the dark. His wide eyes landed upon me as I climbed over the trailer's edge to land beside him.

"Hope you don't mind, but when it's groups like that I tend to just stay out in the field," I said, sliding towards the other edge across from him and plopping down onto the straw. I too stretched my legs as far as possible, my aching back slinking downward until my ass barely hugged the bale's edge.

Dark green eyes burned into me, peering through the silly straw-hat I wore when playing as a farm tour guide. Sometimes I even put on overalls and chewed on a strand of grass for the hell of it. But tonight threatened to dip near freezing, so it was Carhart weather. No one must have warned the man in black as his flimsy cotton hoodie couldn't withstand warm October nights, never mind this.

Maybe he thought the bonfire would keep him warm.

"First time at one of these?" I asked.

"Yes," he got another word out before once again falling silent. Maker, it was like pulling teeth out of a crocodile with one of those claw games.

"They come here pretty often. Once a week in the fall. Sometimes in winter, Christmas season and all. Less so in spring, no one wants to pay money to get to help push a tractor out of the mud. Summer's a mad house," I babbled to myself, growing more self conscious with each silent heartbeat. Was I going to have to sit here for an hour either talking to myself or in the dead silence with a stranger?

Shit, I should at least fix that part. "Name's Hawke," I said. I tried to sit up to extend my hand, but my back and ass were happy to be wedged in between two bales and were not moving.

Those stark eyes cut through me, and his thunder replied with, "I know."

"From the brochures," I said with a shrug.

"No," he shook his head, "I've seen you at the Hanged Man."

"You know Varric? Stupid question, everyone knows Varric."

A snort rolled around in that dark chocolate, espresso beans voice. "You're skilled at trivia."

"I do my best," I laughed, trying to distract myself from the decadent tones of his scant words. They were like a hearty gravy drenching a bone-sticking meatloaf. Or maybe I was just hungry. That's what I get for putting off dinner until after dark. As the sun's rays finally dropped from their triumphant crescendo, I spotted the beginnings of the stars. There was Mars, close as always, and…

"Wait," I spun in my seat, eyeing up the white-haired stranger with a more discerning eye than before. "Wait, I know you! Not know-know, but you're the Wolf. Lone Wolf. Something with Wolf in it. You beat Varric's record at Whack-A-Nug."

He blinked slowly at that, taking in the words as if needing to translate them before understanding. Or maybe he didn't really care what I had to say. Both were possible. I shook my head remembering Varric's cherry-red cheeks when he heard the news. "Oh was he pissed when he found out. Spent years working to get that score."

"I…I did not…"

"It was funny as shit," I laughed from Varric swearing vengeance to reclaim his title, and the stranger responded in kind. "So, you got a name or is it just Bad Wolf?"

"Fenris," he answered, prodding at his chest as if there was another white-haired man sitting in my trailer bed. I tipped my head in acknowledgment and turned back to the stars. With both hands wrapped around the back of my head I smiled while tracing the constellations. Damn near every day I was ankle deep in the fields, and muck, the sun burning on my neck and the cows groaning in my ear. But sitting back in the dark, with only the lonely cricket song, the scents of crisp earth and tattered leaves, and the grace of a chill in the air, I could breathe my farm.

"You must…" Fenris whispered, startling me from my gazing. Twisting, I spotted his head bent so low the hood covered his haunting hair. "You must think me pathetic. To…to not even step off of the…"

He stared through the cornstalks to the burst of red and orange chewing apart the inky black. I could hear a hint of the voices babbling from the group, but no sign of the singing yet. Something must have struck Fenris through the incoherent noises as he shrunk deeper into himself.

"I love coming out here," I said. "Getting away from the headlights on the roads, even the houselights, staring up a sky that looks like the Maker himself blew sugar onto it."

A snort rolled out of Fenris' nose at the thought, but I could feel his confused eyes burning into me.

"It's quiet too, let's me think. No email to deal with, no customers screaming for this and that, just an endless horizon and a blanket of stars." Spinning on my side, I caught Fenris' gaze and added, "Being social can get exhausting."

"I…yes it can." A huge 'but' hung in the air, his fingers tracing the back of his hands and up under the sleeves of his hoodie in thought. "I came all the way out here only to…"

"You ain't the first," I said, watching my breath twist into puffs of smoke. Here came the autumn chill. "Taking that step can be…well, not always easy."

Fenris' gaze snapped to a cold glare, his arms crossing. "Do not patronize me."

"What? You want to be flayed for staying behind?" I bit back with. He winced hard at the thought and spun back to glare at the mess of straw hundreds of visitors shoes tore up. Cornstalks trampled. Grass ripped to shit. The farm was always a mess after every visit.

"It's funny," I said with a roll of my shoulders, "we started pretty simple with the tours but have been growing the whole 'Come spend a fall day at the farm' for awhile. Got kettlecorn booths, and cotton candy, and face-painting, and everything up front. Even a petting zoo with the meanest-ass billygoat you will ever meet."

Green eyes burned into the side of my skull, clearly wondering what the hell I was babbling about. I shook it off, cushioning my hands behind my head as I stared heavenward.

"Get a lot more foot traffic now too, which means we can charge more. Have to, we're always booked solid. Every damn day shuttling people back and forth on the trailer to their bonfires so they can roast marshmallows, and hot dogs, and chuck whole ears of corn they stole into the flames. But that group," I pointed towards the smaller fire ahead of us, "they pay the same fee as when we first started."

Fenris sneered, a snarl voicing, "Charity?"

"Yeah, but other way around."

Leaning forward, I yanked off the stupid straw-hat and scratched at my forehead. It tugged hair out of my ponytail, the loose curtain hiding away my eyes as I spoke. "I was in a bad place for a time, losing my…" The tears caught in my throat, this many years on and I still couldn't say her name. "Losing someone special broke me. Shattered more like, and I had no damn idea just how many pieces there were. I was angry, at everything. In some ways I didn't want it to heal over because…I didn't think I was worth the work."

"And that therapy group helped you?" His hand hung out into the open air as if he ached for someone to take it. As if he'd been begging for help without knowing how to ask for years. Yet, when he tried, when he risked himself and ripped away the armor, the slightest breeze terrified him back into his shell. I knew that feeling well.

"Yep," I nodded. My fingers dropped to the straw bale right beside Fenris' hand. I didn't take it, nor did he take mine, but they sat side by side digging into the warm straw.

His eyes drifted down to our hands as silence flooded the fields. Maybe he was thinking about whatever led him to hunt out the coping with trauma group, maybe he thought he had to tell me. Maybe he was weighing what to have for dinner or how tight his shoes were. I wasn't exactly a trained therapist or a mind reader.

"Wanna know what I love about this place?" I whispered.

"It's calm," was his answer, which surprised me.

A smile knotted up my lips and I turned to find a similar one reflected on his face. "That is nice. But I was thinking about how even if there was terrible weather, even if a tornado ripped apart the fields, even if an early frost ruined half the corn, it can return. A new year, a new crop, a new chance. With time, with patience, with skill…anything can be salvaged."

My gaze drifted over to him, my voice plummeting to a whisper, "Anyone is worth saving."

Fenris' eyes burned into mine, soft fog buffeting out of his nostrils as he chewed on my words. The focus proved too strong for either of us, both breaking the bond to stare up at the night's sky. In doing so, his fingers brushed against the edge of mine and I brushed back.

Behind, I heard the first of five songs break out. Sebastian sure did love finding any excuse to drag his guitar out. Usually, that was when I'd start up the tractor and roll in to wait for the end, but…

This was a perfect night to bathe in starlight and swim in the autumn winds.

"If you want to come out here and sit with me the nights I deal with other people," I said, "I'll charge you the same as the therapy group."

With his green eyes gazing to the heavens, a smile crested over Fenris' face as he whispered, "I'd like that."


	7. Chapter 7

With a lash of my foot, I kicked the door back into place. It bounced against the frame from the force but dare not unlatch unless it wanted to answer to me. Growling, I yanked off my shoe, placed one foot into the tub, and suffered a wet puddle wicking against the sock I forgot to take off. Wonderful. Just one more cherry to add to this day.

 _Forget the damn wet sock._ I'd be ripping it off soon anyway. Reaching in through the smudgy shower curtain, I closed off the drain and started the faucet. Cool water pooled on my palm, which I shook away onto the growing wet spot to step out of the drawing bath in order to disrobe.

Midway through undoing the mess of buttons, my furious fingers didn't so much bump one as rip it off. It pinged through the air before clattering against the bathroom sink. I slapped my hand out to catch it, but watched in disgruntled acceptance as the small, white button slipped down the open drain.

"Why not? Why should I expect any better?" I snarled at both the sink drain that ate the button and the half-open shirt which I'd have to repair. Later. In this state…it was best to not think about what I'd do. Sew it to someone's face perhaps.

"Cassandra, love?" a fist knocked on the door. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," I shouted, losing the shirt and industrial-grade bra. They piled up on the floor along with the wet sock. Every indignity of the day, growing more numerous by the minute, swelled behind my eyes and I snarled. "I'm gonna be in here a long time. If you need to use the bathroom look elsewhere."

A chuckle answered my honest snarl, his voice drifting as he walked away, "Got it."

Off went the pants to the same tiled grave as the rest of the uniform. I dug a hand into my shoulders, trying to work out a kink that'd anchor a ship. Maker, after a day like today what I needed was…

My eyes darted from the slowly filling tub to my secret drawer. It wasn't that the drawer itself was secret, only that if anyone ever looked inside I'd have to have them executed. Tugging open the handle, I plucked up my latest guilty pleasure "Seven Sands: An Erotic Sea Adventure." It was awful, bodice busting, and just what I needed.

I move to shut the drawer tight when I caught a couple plastic bottles tucked behind. Hm. About the size of those sample vodka bottles, the first one I picked up bore a label with a cutesy pumpkin wearing a face made out of whipped cream. "Pumpkin pie scented bubble bath," I read aloud, then winced hoping he didn't hear me.

Last thing I needed was him, was anyone learning that Cassandra Pentaghast sometimes enjoyed a bubble bath. Or three. Shaking off the thought, I was about to return the bottle to its hiding place when I paused. Why not? When else was lathering myself in the smells of a pumpkin pie better than while camping in the bathtub for a few hours reading a trashy novel?

Stomping over my discarded uniform, I gingerly stuck a toe in the water. The heat burned, my skin flaming red at the contact, but as I eased deeper in the pain began to dissipate to a welcoming embrace. Slowly, I slunk down into the four inch water, my heels kicking at the barely-there bath. The water all but dribbled out of the faucet meaning by the time the tub was full, it'd probably be ice cold.

No. The point of this was to destress. Forget the shoddy plumbing. I cracked open the bottle, the familiar autumn scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove clobbering my nose in an instant. Without pause, I tipped the entire bottle into the gurgling water. Orange goo oozed out of the wide mouth and plopped into the water to circle the drain like a snake guarding its nest.

A handful of bubbles already began to rise as I tossed the empty bottle onto the mat beside the tub. With my toe, I kicked the faucet up to as hot as possible and plucked the book into my fingers. Bubbles tickled against my stubbly legs as I sloshed deeper into the rising pool.

Shaking off my wet fingers, I cracked open the crinkling pages of the paperback and dove into the seventeenth century, the high seas, and lusty pirates.

 _"What do you think you are doing?" Constance's breath tugged upon her bountiful bosom, the dread pirate's eyes cutting a deadly path down her dress. She scoffed at such advances even as her loins throbbed from the direct attention._

 _"My dear," Captain Collin Blue-Eyes slammed a hand beside her coiffed auburn curls with such force the entire ship lurched to the side. She lost control of her body, the weak muscles shuddering from the display of strength even as her eyes met his._

 _Hot breath the scent of the ocean burned across Constance's wan cheeks as Blue-Eyes bent his face to hers. "I'm rescuing you."_

Softness brushed against my fingers. I whipped my hand out, expecting to clear away a hair, but plowed through a mass. With a resigned sigh, I yanked my mind away from the story and paled. White bubbles climbed up the bathtub walls, nearly three feet and still rising as the tub filled with water.

My hand opened in shock, but I stopped myself before the paperback splattered into the tub. "What the…?" I shouted to myself, fishing for the bottle of bubble solution while also fumbling around to try and kill the water. My skin stank of a yoga studio in October, the bubbles working their way up my shoulders. Some adhered to my chin, which I had to raise higher while bringing the label closer.

"'Only use one teaspoon per bath,'" I read, then snarled. "You have to be kidding! One teaspoon from a bootle this small? Written in 4 point font?"

The ever rising bubbles, fortified in their attack, scaled my cheeks until one burst in my nose. Cinnamon burned down the back of my throat, leaving me retching to escape the flavor of vomited pumpkin pie. Still, the bubble invasion wouldn't cease.

"That's it," I shouted, hurling the empty bottle to the ground. Lashing forward, my fingers constricted around the faucet handle. I blinked against the bubble horde, trying to keep my eyes out of the soap, as I wrenched the faucet. Metal ground on metal and the entire faucet handle suddenly grew heavier.

 _Pop._

Fuck!

Water erupted from where the faucet handle transformed into a gaping hole. "Are you serious?!" I shouted, both hands extended as a firehose spray of water and soap solution splattered into my face.

"Cassandra?" he shouted from the living room sounding perturbed.

"I'm fine!" I screamed back. Oh shit, the book! Yanking that hand into the sky, I tried to avoid the renewed bubble horde to protect the already wet pages. With my other hand, I fished into the water to try and find the fallen handle. Water shot against my face, smearing the thick bubble concoction even deeper into my pores.

A roar burned in my throat, aching to break free as I blindly fumbled for the handle. Warm metal bounded into my fingers when there was another knock on the bathroom door. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, damn it!" I shouted back, yanking up the only solution. The feral roar released as I fought through the oncoming storm one-handed. Foolishly, I wouldn't let the trashy book fall, protecting it with my life as I slammed the broken faucet handle back into place. Water continued to spurt from the edges, but with a triumphant cry, I spun it down.

The water fell to nothing more than a scant drip, my foe vanquished. I stood in the tub, bubbles risen so high they spilled over the edge and onto the floor. They'd climbed clear up half my body, leaving me looking like some kind of rabid beast bursting out of the ocean. My chest was gasping in air, trying to escape the cloying smell, when the bathroom door burst open.

"What are you doing?" I shrieked, watching in an angry panic as his eyes swept across the mess of soap oozing into our floorboards and rugs. As they moved to stare at me panting in the bathtub holding a book aloft like a shield, he walked through the blanket of bubbles.

Warm hands cupped against my waist, his chest flattening against mine as he plucked me off my feet. The pumpkin spice bubbles seeped across his shirt like an oil stain. But his endless eyes were only on mine as he carried me safe in his arms towards the bathroom door.

I wrapped a hand around his shoulders, keeping myself steady even while staring my question at him. As he walked us across the threshold, away from the bubble horde, he whispered, "I'm rescuing you," and warmed my lips with a cinnamon-nutmeg kiss.


	8. Chapter 8

Freezing drops splattered through the fiery foliage parting each leaf of the canopy like a cannon ball tumbling from space. I kicked up the pace, trying to jog around the puddles seeping over the sidewalk. Leaves the color of rotten book pages floated upon the grey water like boats tossed into a loveless lake. Each tumble of the rain soaked deeper into my jacket, pelting the left half of my body while I searched for succor under the shared umbrella.

As I leaned closer, my cheek pressed to the cool metal of the handle, a warm hand cinched tighter to the small of my back. Eyes the color of a summer deck washed in autumn rain blinked at me. The smile perched forever upon his lips bent lower into a pucker. Lips with the heat of a wood-burning stove brushed against my forehead a moment before he took a step forward and splashed calf deep into a puddle.

"Blighted hell," Anders cursed, shaking his uncovered hair so the blond tip of the ponytail swiped against the inside of the umbrella.

"Told you we should have taken a cab," I answered back, my voice raised to be heard over not only the pitter-patter of raindrops but the slosh and wash of cars skidding through the streets. Flooding drains splashed back towards us, everyone in a cursing mood thanks to the never-ending rain.

Everyone but the man on my arm. The cross pucker of skin at the top of his nose that settled in months ago vanished along with the summer heat, leaving him looking both ecstatic to be alive and also five years younger. "But if we caught an Uber we'd have missed out on all of this." Anders gestured towards a trio of suits all huddling under a newspaper they bought just to act as rain gear.

To say they looked miserable would be to insist the ocean is a bit damp. I watched the three stomp towards the curb, their eyes daring any of the flying past traffic to soak them. It took all of ten seconds for one to do just that, the overflow threatening to wash them away in the flood.

"You enjoy the misery?" I asked, catching the small snicker on Anders' lips.

A wounded look crossed his face, but he quickly snapped off the facade. "More that I find comfort in people of a certain tipped-up nose variety being reminded how little they matter. The rain doesn't care the price of the suit it wets."

"You are so strange," I said shaking my head.

A puff of hot breath brandished against my cheek as Anders leaned in tight. His lips were in not a smile, not the way his canines glinted by the taxi brake lights. But it wasn't a sneer either. Some strange middle ground that was all his own.

"You have no idea," he answered, darting closer for another reviving kiss. My hand twisted up the umbrella pole like a snake climbing a tree, pulling me closer to both the man's body and his intriguing soul.

Rain pattered against the plastic roof above us, rivulets dripping towards the ground at our feet like tears from the sky. By the arrhythmic beat of the autumn storm, I gripped Anders' cheek and guided him to my lips. So close the tip of his striking nose glanced against mine, smoke puffing from the micro-O of his lips. Greedy for the peppery taste, I leaned closer.

A noise erupted from behind us. A sad, mewling thing that etched through the ears like broken glass. While I turned my chin in confusion, it was Anders who whipped his head clean around. His eyes opened in concern from the cry.

"What was that?" I asked, flinching at a repeat of what sounded like a baby doll as its batteries reached their end.

"From behind there," Anders called, pointing towards a cement retaining wall dug into the mud-slicked hill. Before I could speak another word, he abandoned the sanctity of the umbrella to leap into the torrent. The rain plowed apart his tucked-back hair, turning the dark gold locks a grungy brown as he dashed for the filthy bricks.

Twisting his head around, as if he was attempting to use sonar to locate the noise, suddenly Anders bent clean over. His stomach and the wool coat he wore both dug into the mud-coated wall as he rummaged for something behind it. A few more of the suits clomped on past, eyes glaring at me for pausing on the sidewalk.

With a gulp, I dashed for Anders, wondering what got into him. To not only leave the safety of the umbrella for the elements, but to then nearly dive into the mud was unheard of. Yet, he didn't even blink at such a thought.

Rubbing a hand across his bent-over back, I extended the umbrella above us both as best I could. "What is it?" I asked, watching as Anders tugged his lanky frame up from the ground. Darkness nestled in his hands. "What did you find?"

Anders didn't answer me, one hand cupped below whatever he unearthed while the other rubbed at a cake of mud. As the clumps worried off of the find onto his fingers, a tiny triangle appeared. Then, a set of whiskers, and a mouth with a sliver of a bright pink tongue opened to give another pathetic cry.

"A kitten?" I gasped, my hand frozen just above the black fur matted and stained from mud, rain, and neglect.

"Poor thing was drowning back there," Anders said, his tone heart-stricken as if he couldn't believe such a thing would occur. The tiny black body, with half of its onyx fur matted by mud and mange, looked a pathetic sort and near death.

But, as Anders worked over its little paws and rubbed at the back, its cloudy eyes drifted away from the land of spirits. They couldn't move far, but the kitten gave another mewl stronger than before. Without a care for his wardrobe, Anders opened up his coat and tucked the palm-sized kitten in beside his heart. Only the tiny face peeked out, its no doubt hungry mouth crying for food now that it was freed from the rain.

"There you are," Anders whispered to the rescued kitten. "Safe and warm. Get some milk in your belly and you should be right as…" He broke from staring in rapture at the ransacked ball of fur to the rain tumbling around them. "Well, better than that."

I'd seen a lot of various shades of Anders — sometimes brash, often cocky to shield himself, occasionally wounded and worried about anyone judging him for it. But never in the years of knowing him had I witnessed the man coming fully under the spell of another living being in ten seconds flat. He cooed at the kitten tucked warmly under his arm, the tip of his pinkie trying to brush the upended hair back along the kitten's tiny snout.

"Someone like you needs a home. Not to be tossed out into the rain like a piece of trash. To be ignored by every person rushing past. Not a damn one caring enough to stop and…" The rant that began to the kitten before turning on himself fell away as his eyes burned into mine.

With a shrug, Anders leaned back enough the rain plummeted into his hair and down the collar of his jacket. "I mean, we can contact a shelter to take care of this little one. I know, the place is yours, not mine. And…and who am I to decide what you want in your life?"

I passed the umbrella to my other hand allowing me to reach into the gap between Anders' coat. Slowly, I drew the tip of my finger against the kitten's head. The fur, even with mud meshed in, was soft as down. It mewled, shifting to dig into my gentle scratches. Which was when a rumbling started to take hold deep in the kitten's gut.

As it purred from the attention and love, I smiled. "A black kitten right before Halloween," I mused, glancing away from the bundle of fur up into Anders' eyes. "We were destined to adopt her."


	9. Chapter 9

A tug rattled me out of my stupor, my eyes snapping up the translucent line leading out of the reel. I bored into the black tip of the pole, aching for it to pull downward in an arc, but the damn thing remained obstinately straight. Whatever nibbled on my lure must have moved on.

Sniffling, I rubbed under my nose. My entire face bore a sheen of dew from the humidity angling to tip to rain. It felt as if we were swimming in the lake along with the fish thanks to the water clinging to every inch of the boat inside and out. Trying to squeege it away was pointless as more would simply bead up in five or so minutes.

Adjusting the sleeves on my jacket to cover over my freezing fingers, I gazed out across the lake. Only a soft breeze blew through the surrounding forests, a gentle glug-glug bounding into the aluminum sides of the boat. The slow rise and fall with the waves nearly pulled me into a waking dream state, leaving me to not notice how cold the lake became.

"Hey…" the man with one hand at the motor, the other holding his rod steady called out. I twisted on the damp, wooden seat to catch his eye. Drops of water beaded up in his bramble of a black beard creating the effect of decorating him in diamond pearls. The rest of his face was hidden under a trusty fishing cap studded with jigs and hooks.

Blackwall pointed at my fingers nearly hidden below the hems of my sleeves. "You cold?"

"Nah," I shook my head, rolling my shoulders back, "I'm fine."

The stringer was light this trip. Apparently, even the fish decided to stay in by the fire on this drizzly autumn day. And I had a shore lunch all planned out too. Well, even if I couldn't use the six-pack to batter the fish, it'd still be good for warming me up once we got back. Got inside, kicked off the waterlogged boots, nestled our feet by the old wood stove, and rested away the cold.

In the distance, I spied a small log cabin with smoke curling up through the birch trees. Stretching my shoulders, I thought of the warmth wafting off a pile of burning logs. The scent of crackling wood, mulled cider sitting by the hearth, and a hunter's stew bubbling on the stove filled my nostrils.

"Here," Blackwall staggered up from the 'driver's seat.' He kept his back hunched over, his body rolling with the lapping waves as he yanked off his coat. Before I could argue, he draped it around my shoulders. His body heat entwined with mine, quickly warming me to the core. Nuzzling tighter to the collar, I reveled in the scent of pine, of motor oil worked into the pores of his hands, of wood ash on the air. Of him.

As Blackwall sat beside me, he cast his lure on the other side of the boat. It kerplunked loudly in the soggy air of the silent lake. The ripples coalesced towards us, expanding with each lap until they washed on past.

"You didn't have to," I insisted, rising up higher. Be nice to catch something today so it wasn't a complete wash.

A soft chuckle rolled in Blackwall's chest. His bearded features shifted as those weary and cautious eyes softened. "I know. You're harder than steel."

"Damn straight," I nodded, gently laughing at the thought. We worked side by side, both of us bringing in the fish, or game, to fill the supper table. Neither more important than the other. Neither a wilting flower that needed rescuing.

I worried my fingers, Blackwall's larger coat easily hiding them away inside a sheathe of protective wool. In a soft voice, I admitted, "Thanks."

He didn't answer, but I felt his back slide against mine. I stared haphazardly at my bobber, wishing for it to tug under, as Blackwall reeled in and tried casting once more. After his hand circled out to guide the lure to the fish, the palm patted against my knee. Three times it knocked before worrying higher up my thigh.

"This cold already, gonna be a harsh winter. And soon," was all Blackwall said.

"Yup," I answered.

Waves lapped against the boat wall. Lunk lunk lunk. I flexed my toes inside my water-resistant boots, the pair of wool socks struggling to keep up.

"Can only mean one thing," Blackwall said leaning forward to try and catch my eye. But I was too busy reeling in and preparing to cast to look.

As the white and red bobber sailed through the air to land with a plop, I finally gazed over at the man. A smile burned on my face, and I exuberantly proclaimed to the world, "Lots of ice fishing."

The smile made it through the beard, Blackwall's free hand locking around mine. He swung the pair together, eyes burning into mine as he answered, "Yup."


	10. Chapter 10

"Kieran!"

My voice didn't have a hope to rise above the cacophony of children bleeding into the orchard. An entire mass of them moved like locusts descending upon the feast, their parents long since left behind to trudge up the hill.

Only my son glanced back, the sea of taller children threatening to consume him. While I hoped he'd wait, the allure proved too much. In an instant, he turned on his heels and scampered towards a tree. Three other children flocked the branches, most taller than my boy. Kieran ducked down and scampered closer to the trunk, his hands scrabbling for the blushing apples hidden amongst the leaves.

"Your father is acquiring a bucket right now," I sighed, glancing towards the twisting line of parents left to pay for the privilege of bringing in the farmer's crop. A rather satisfying deal on their end.

A giggle of joy drew me from the manure-stench of the barn to gaze upon an unending field of apple trees. They fanned out like autumn's army waiting for orders to march upon the winter forest. My boy's hands cupped to his chest, a red apple bigger than both his palms cradled safely. The exuberant eyes of an ever distracted seven-year-old shattered expectations by honing upon the apple and refusing to lift. As Kieran laughed again, I accepted that the long drive, the trek out to some bird-woman's farm, and the threat of tick embedding was worth it for his smile.

I let my eyes drift off Kieran, about to look for his father, when a hand whipped through the air and plunged greedy fingers to his apple. "Hey!" Kieran shouted, trying to protect his get while the larger boy puffed himself up.

"Gimme that! It's mine."

"Is not. I found it," my son shouted, trying to tuck the apple in safer to his chest. Which was when the bully slapped at his hand. Still Kieran wouldn't acquiesce, even with a pink handprint rising from where that monster struck my son. My gait elongated, thunderstorms trailing my steps towards the children.

"Give it now!" the cretin shrieked. Greedy fingers dug into both the flesh of the apple and my son's. It proved too much as Kieran cried, the sound rattling my soul, and he released the apple into the bully's hands.

"Ha!" the child crowed, holding aloft his prize as if he earned it. Piggish eyes narrowed upon my boy and the bully yanked his hand back to slap Kieran once more.

My fingers snaked around the child's wrist, holding it tight above his head. He screamed as if my grip was lava. How I wished it were so, but aside from keeping the monster from doing as he wanted, I caused him no harm.

I stared into the black eyes of the child, chaos and cruelty already sewn into the makeup of someone not yet ten. "Do not hit my son or you shall suffer beyond imagination." My tone must have punctured through even that Dunning-Krueger armor as the child nodded dumbly. "And return that which you stole."

The bully glanced towards Kieran, who held both his hands out, but he flinched from doing the right thing. With a sigh, I plucked the apple free and held it far above the child's head. "You should be punished for such atrocities," I muttered, releasing the boy's arm.

"Oi! Let go of 'im!"

My eyes rolled at the voice ordering me to do that which I already did. Turning, I spotted a mass of a man stumbling towards me. He wore all his strength in his gut, as if he'd swallowed every ego-boosting lie, every assurance from society that he was important, and honestly believed them. His legs hustled up the hill as I folded my arms, the apple tucked safely in my palm. I shifted to hide Kieran from view as the creator of the child bully thundered towards us.

"Don't you fucking dare touch my kid!" he shrieked.

"Perhaps you should try parenting your child, then the rest of us wouldn't need to bother."

Red splotches formed over his face like mold sporing upon a film of fat. He tried to puff his deflated chest out as if I'd be either impressed or scared. Knowing what was to come, I turned to Kieran and told him, "Go and pick some more apples."

"Yes, Mummy," he mumbled, shuffling away from both me and the man who should be shooting steam from his nose. I maintained my typical cool-exterior which was only enflaming him more.

"Hey! Hey, get him back here! Your snotty brat stole from my kid!"

The kid in that situation fell silent, no longer wishing to use either his words or fists. No, it was all on the father, the larger copy as it were, to attempt to browbeat me into giving him what he wanted.

"You mean this apple that my child in fact picked and your son then hit mine in order to thieve away?" I lofted the apple before the man's face, his eyes bulging as I didn't cower and plead for him to forgive me. Men of his ilk feasted upon women who shackled themselves to the cult of nice. Against me, he had no power. Not that he had any to begin with.

His lip curled, as if the man intended to rip my throat out with his teeth. "Bitch whore, dressed like a slut. You aren't gonna tell me a fucking thing."

"As it would be a waste of both our time," I responded, eyeing up the man. Whether he caught the barb or was simply upset that I continued to have a voice it was difficult to discern. What was not was how his rage threatened to spew out of his ears.

"You!" He turned on his son, cuffing the boy by the arm and dragging him closer. "Is this yours?" He jabbed at the apple I kept in my hand. The boy mumbled, his eyes shifting over the trampled ground. "I said did this she-bitch steal it from you?"

"Mmyes," the child fumbled, flinching at both the lie and the fear of retaliation if he told the truth.

"Fucking finally," the man cursed, releasing his hold on the boy. He extended the no doubt sticky fingers flat and cocked his head. "Well…"

"Well what?" I asked.

"Shit you're dumb. Give it over before I get the cops involved."

I snickered at the threat, though he did look like a man who'd call the police if a trashcan fell over in his driveway all while never having to worry about the mountain of dirt hidden under his rugs. My body didn't shift, the apple held tight in my fingers as I stared around the teeming orchard. A few of the other adults drifted closer at the screaming, but once they spotted a man harassing a woman they all vanished behind trees.

There were certainly enough apples to go around. No reason to fight over one when it was easy to give in to the whims of a bully. Which was precisely the wrong message to teach my son. I lifted the apple into the air, twisting it between my fingers. "It's not yours, you cretin."

"Bitch!" he lashed out, fingers clamping to my wrist. The grip suckered to my skin, a thousand times tighter than what I did to his son. I shifted, prepared to teach the man just how much damage a steel-tipped boot can do to external genitals, when I caught what made my son pick this apple in the first place.

As my leg lowered to the ground, the bully snatched away the coveted apple. He released my hand, red welts rising from his grip, but I only stared back. My cold eyes burned into both his meaty face and the fruit he stole from a child. With a laugh, he placed the apple to his teeth and took a massive bite.

Which was when a warm smile wormed up my lips. I paid no heed to the pain he caused to my arm, only grinned at the man who flinched against the abyss. "Come on," he shoved at his son, scampering away from me. But, he made certain to take another bite of the stolen apple.

"Mummy!" Tiny hands overladen with fruit bumped into my back. Keiran's exuberant eyes warmed my heart, his full arms cinched tight as I swiped back a lock of his fallen hair. "Look at all the apples I got!"

"I see. You did an excellent job."

My son smiled at the praise, his chin rising higher until he spotted the two generations of bullies walking down the lane. The father stopped and seemed to be staring harder at what he bit into. "Is that my apple?"

"Yes."

My little entomologist scrunched up his nose. "Does he know it's got a worm in it?"

A retching noise broke through the idyllic farm, the bully bent over to try and no doubt vomit up half of an eaten caterpillar. "He does now," I said with a chuckle. "Come on," I shook away the monster who tried to ruin our day and rubbed Kieran's shoulders, "let's find you another caterpillar."

As my son led me into the trees, my ears listened to the blustering blather of a man choking upon his own comeuppance.


	11. Chapter 11

"Hold still!"

I stood sentinel in the corner watching Cullen attempt to wrestle a giddy eight-year-old in place. While she'd usually give in after a show of cajoling from her father, the allure of a mountain of candy kept her twitching about like leaves in the wind.

"Mar, I swear to the Maker," he sighed as she slipped from his arms and dashed for the plate of cooling spaghetti on the table. Five orange noodles slithered into her puckered mouth, yellow and red stains slapping against both her cheeks and the grey fabric hanging too precariously off her shoulders.

Without a by-your-leave, Cullen locked his arm around his daughter's waist and hauled her into the air. Those same burning amber eyes tried to curse at her father for interrupting her dinner, but she had no recourse as he plopped her on top of the kitchen counter.

"Da-ad!" she groaned, her arms flopping to the sides in exaggerated annoyance.

"This is too long," Cullen yanked up the hem of the tunic/robe that without shoes on piled at her feet. "I need to pin it up." He blindly fished for the plastic bottle crammed full of the safety pins while having to keep both eyes on our daughter.

"It's fine," Marie rolled her eyes sky high, an adult sigh of exasperation escaping her lips.

"You'll trip and break your nose," he insisted, already bunching up the ends of her costume and pinning it in place.

"But I ha' to eat dinner!" she complained, wiggling at her knees despite being high off the floor. One glare at her father paused the jostling but she jabbed at her nearly congealed plate of pasta. Ever since it was fished steaming out of the pot, Marie would run into the kitchen, cram a handful into her mouth, then dash to her room to add another layer to her costume.

It was a surprise this year. One she cobbled together all by herself, if my paying for the various pieces at the store didn't count as helping. As Trick-Or-Treating grew closer, she'd try to make us guess, growing angry at how off the mark we were. All of Cullen's answers had been some form of a witch, which was usually when she'd stomp off to her room in a huff and start gluing rhinestones on.

The beleaguered father concerned about his daughter's nose turned to me for backup. Unfolding my arms, I stepped closer to the pair. "He's right." That was clearly the wrong answer as she blew her fallen hair up. "You don't want to break that pretty nose of yours."

"Maybe I do!" Marie insisted. "Get a kitty bandage on it, all the ice cream I can eat, and I can miss school."

"Ice cream…?" Cullen glanced to me and I shrugged. There'd been a rash of tonsillectomies in her class and all Marie got out of it was unlimited ice cream. "No, you don't want a broken nose. You're not getting a broken nose. Not on my watch."

Luckily, our daughter was blessed to know when she was beat. With a roll of her eyes, she pronounced, "Fine."

Without her interference, Cullen made quicker work bundling up the too long strip of fabric Marie industriously cut a hole into to shove her head through. It dangled above her ankles in an asymmetrical line, but as she was placed back onto the ground, Marie gave a twirl. The heavier safety pins helped increase the reach which she giggled at.

Secure in her not-breaking-her-nose costume, she dashed back to the cold spaghetti. After dumping another mass of parmesan onto the plate, Marie slurped down the rest of the dinner she had to finish before making her rounds.

Speaking of. I checked the clock on the microwave and groaned. Cullen caught the move, his hand wrapped around the small of my back as he leaned close. "I have to leave soon. Rounds starts in a half hour and with all the kids about to flood the street…" Rather than repeat my woes to the man who knew them as well as his own, I wrapped my arms around his chest.

He cuddled his palm to the back of my head, worrying the straining muscles in the nape of my neck. "Don't worry. I can handle this," Cullen whispered, the scruff on his chin scraping over my forehead.

The rattle of porcelain caused us to both look over as our daughter held up her spaghetti-stained hands to declare, "Done!"

I laughed at the messy child, already yanking up a towel to scrub her down for her long ghost walk. "It's not you I'm worried about," I said to Cullen as our child in grey dashed back to her room to finish changing.

Cullen slotted in beside me, a hand wrapped around my shoulders as if to prop me up. We were both facing a very long night. "Take lots of pictures," I said.

"I always do," he chuckled, fishing out his industrious and always full phone.

"Make sure to take her down main street, with the hayrack," I kept instructing him.

"I remember. And I doubt Mar will let me forget."

"And," I nuzzled my lips against his ear, my hot breath tickling his skin as I said, "nick me a few candy bars."

His proud-but-cautious father edifice cracked as a sly smile flitted about his lips. Enveloping my waist with his hand, his amber eyes burned down upon me as he whispered, "Why, you are so devious I might have to run you in."

My finger brushed against his lip, aligning with the white scar perched upon the top before sliding down. His sultry bottom lip lapped out from the pull, the wet heat of his mouth warming my finger and other parts. "I'll hold you to that," I said, hoisting myself tighter to his body as I raised up for a kiss.

"Let's go!" the apple of my eye shrieked, shattering the moment. To emphasize that she was in no mood to wait around while her parents necked, she slapped her hands, rattling the empty pumpkin bucket. "Well…!"

With a resigned acceptance, we both turned from the rain-check kiss to find our daughter wearing a pair of angel wings ripped from her old Christmas costume, dragon slippers meant for the bedroom, a tiara perched upon her head, and a Zorro mask slipping off her unbroken nose.

"No!" Cullen stomped towards her, "No, no, no, you are not wearing all of that."

"Mom!" Marie cried, already dipping into her well of emergency tears.

"Take those shoes off," he ordered, jabbing at the flimsy slippers. "They do not belong outside of the house. And you will trip in them. You can barely walk in the living room, never mind the streets!" Cullen was in full wet hen mode, his feathers fluffed as he intended to shuffle his baby under his wings for protection. Poor Marie kept shooting me pleas to rescue her.

"You know the rules, young lady," I said instead, crossing my arms. We had to be a united front or she'd walk all over us.

Red burned across her cheeks, Marie debating if throwing a tantrum was worth missing out on candy. Whether it was my cool head, or her father's tactical ingenuity that won over, Marie yanked off her slippers and tossed them at the couch. She still got off one more, "Fine!" to drive home how angry she was about this.

Cramming on her school sneakers as fast as possible, Marie eyed up both of us then leapt to her feet. She was almost to the door handle, before her dad said, "Wait. The mask."

"Come on!"

"Masks are dangerous. That one could slip, cut off your line of visibility, and you'd walk into a truck," Cullen ordered, marching to the girl who gripped so hard to the door handle she looked about to break it.

"Mo-om!"

I slipped a hand over my daughter's shoulders that were trembling at such an injustice. "You know how it works in this house, Mar," I said, getting a major eye roll at the reminder that rules existed. "We listen to two of Dad's inane fears, and ignore the third."

"What…?" Cullen sputtered. "It is not inane —"

"Thanks, Mom!" Marie pecked a kiss to my cheek, trying to cement that there was no chance her father could win this. I did make certain to re-tie the knot on her mask so it had little chance of slipping.

"Now, stand there so I can take some pictures," I ordered, plucking out my phone. There was no usual glare from my baby shifting closer to becoming a teenager with every day. She was proud of her costume, even if she did have to lose the feet.

While Marie posed, often stretching her arms wide as if she was flying, or doing the fake muscle-man grunts, Cullen sidled up beside me. "But the mask…"

"I'm certain you'll keep our daughter from being hit by a truck, or a meteorite, or cursed by a witch. You can't shield her from everything," I whispered to the man who no doubt saw a teetering toddler when looking at Marie instead of the jungle-gym scaling grade-schooler we had.

"One day she won't even need me," he whispered to himself, a sheen of tears misting over his eyes.

Slipping the phone away, I brushed my cheek against his chest as I embraced the father facing the march of time. "To fight all of her battles, yes. But to be there for her…?" His chest rumbled at the truth, Cullen burying his nose in my hair as we both breathed in the future for our tiny fighter.

"Da-ad! We need to go before all the good candy's gone!" Marie's pleas broke up our maudlin session.

Cullen nodded, a hand rustling over the back of his neck. "Okay, Mar. We can head out now."

"Finally," she pronounced at the parents who kept ruining her life. As Cullen reached the front door, one hand sliding on his light jacket, Marie suddenly thrust a plastic sword at him.

He blinked in confusion, hesitant to accept the fake blade. "What's this for?"

"To defend me from the monsters, duh!" Marie pronounced, shaking her head at her father's foolishness.

With the seriousness of a knight accepting an order from his Queen, Cullen tucked the plastic sword into his belt. He bowed deep to Marie who was already bolting out the front door and down the front steps. Following behind, I watched the pair walk across our driveway to the first house. Our little girl was flapping her arms around, telling her father precisely how to kill all the monsters with his sword. Cullen listened with rapt attention.


	12. Chapter 12

The eerie cackle of a witch sent Alistair hopping over the couch and fishing for the bowl. A monster's bellow broke from the horror-themed doorbell, the kids getting antsy for their candy. Still, he paused before the door, smoothed back his darkened hair, and draped the plastic black cloak across his forearm to hide away his nose.

With all the smooth moves of a classic vampire, Alistair cracked open the door. A trio of tiny tots, dressed as superheroes instead of potatoes, looked up at him.

"Vat is this?" Alistair gave a perfect Bela Lugosi impersonation — if Bela had the flu and switched to a British accent halfway through his vowels.

"Trick or treat!" The chorus nearly knocked him on his arse as the kids extended their buckets and pillowcases high.

"Trick or treat?" He dropped the cloak to reveal the candy bowl hidden inside his cloak. Every tiny eye widened as they sized up the chocolate concoctions hidden inside a plastic bowl covered in fake spiderwebs.

Alistair snapped the flimsy plastic teeth in his mouth. "You did not come here for treat." He raised his hand high, rattling the cloak while looming over the unimpressed children. "You came for me to suck your blood!"

Unfortunately, on the 'Blood' he overextended his jaw and the hinge in his fake teeth couldn't keep up. Slobbery, plastic fangs tumbled from his mouth and landed in the Red Power Ranger's pumpkin bag.

"Oops," he gulped, slapping a hand to his mouth as the kids all got a eyeful of his saliva oozing through the gaps between their snickers and mars bars.

"Aaaahhh!" they shrieked as one, spinning on their heels to make a run for it even as they accidentally kept they fake teeth they were fleeing from.

The trio got down the walkway before Alistair waved to them, "Wait, wait. You forgot your candy…!"

With a resigned sigh, he slid back inside and shut the door. Out of nowhere, hands locked around his stomach, causing Alistair to jerk upwards in shock. Thunder rolled through his chest, his heart leaping in terror until he turned to find soulful blue eyes staring from between linen bandages.

"The rate you're going, we're gonna have to eat all that candy ourselves," she laughed, a hand sliding down her curvaceous hip. All of those bandages cranked her va-va-voom to eleven.

"Mmmm," Alistair moaned, "when do I get to unwrap the mummy?"

She laughed even as he nuzzled against her neck, lips pressing to the muslin. "Not until the full moon, you know how curses work."

"But I vant to bite your throat," he murmured, the tips of his flat teeth nibbling against the bandage costume.

"Well," she leaned back enough to force Alistair to rise from her body. Holding out her hand, she produced yet another set of plastic teeth. "You'll need these to do it with."

Slipping in the fangs, Alistair gave 'em a quick clack. Just as he was about to scrape the edge of the cheap plastic against her delectable neck, a wolf man howled from the door.

Not one to run from duty, Alistair spun on his heels and opened to the night to find a young girl dressed in grey standing beside what had to be her father. "Trick or treat!" she said, a smile permanently etched onto her face.

Alistair dug out a candy bar, quickly dropping it into her bucket. "Are you some kind of banshee…princess?" he guessed, noticing the tiara on her head.

"Nope!" she grinned even wider, proud of her secret costume. "Look Dad!"

"Yes, Mar. What else do you say?" the blonde man sighed, no doubt in for a long night.

"Oh." The not-banshee princess blushed. "Happy Halloween!" she bellowed before skipping down the steps with her father in tow.

Alistair waved to them, "Happy…" launching from his mouth along with the teeth. His instincts kicked in and he caught them just before they ejected out of his mouth. With both the teeth and his lips smothered, he mumbled, "Halloween," and slunk back inside for the next group.

* * *

At the jingle of the doorbell, Zevran paused before the antique mirror propped up on the floor in the hallway. It tumbled off a bent nail some time back and he never felt the need to repair it. With a jaunty twist, he beamed pure, undiluted sexuality at his reflection. The twinkle in his eye amplified to a glow as he adjusted the debonair ruffles of his gentlemen costume. A victorian count if one wanted to be exact. Zevran was always a gentlemen, unless specifically requested to not be.

Another jingle and a knock made his serious pout crack into a smile. He hated to let on to his excitement, but he couldn't wait to see his date in her outfit. To whisk her off to a rather liberating club where he had an in with the owner. Giving a little skip, Zevran turned towards the door and grabbed the latch.

No doubt she stood upon his porch, her ruby lips puckered in thought, her body trembling in antici…

Darkness stood where Zev expected to find a lily. As he adjusted his sight downward, a small child with a superhero mask knotted to her face thrust a candy bag towards him.

—pation.

"Hello?" he began.

"Trick or treat!" she shouted, nearly blasting him against the back hallway.

"Ah," Zev inspected his ear making certain he didn't fall deaf, "you're here for candy. I'm afraid there's been a bit of a mistake…"

The child's lip pouted outward, her head craning back as she stared at his walkway. Light glinted off the plastic crown fixed atop her head. "But your porch light's on," she said, the hand holding her candy jabbing to emphasize that it was in fact casting an illumination.

Zevran smacked his lips. "I think I understand the confusion. You see…"

"Any house with a light on gives out candy. Them's the rules," she insisted, crossing her arms tight over her chest.

With a laugh, Zev patted his palms to his thighs and bent over. As his face drew close to the serious expression upon such a small person, he asked, "What are you, the Halloween police?"

"Mar?" A new voice startled Zev and as he glanced up higher he caught what had to be her father stepping closer to the porch. In an instant, a memory flashed through his mind of Zevran handcuffed to a rather uncomfortable chair as the man read off a litany of charges.

Great. He spun back to his sparse offerings, nothing more than a bowl to hold his keys in view. In the five or so minutes that he left the porch light on for her was when a trick-or-treater would waltz to his door. And not any, but a cop's kid.

Patting first into the bowl as if there was candy in there, while trying to shake off the glower of the law burning under his skin, Zevran began to dig into his pockets for hope when he found something. With a smile, he walked to the little ninja fairy and dropped a tin of tic-tacs into her pumpkin. "There you are," he said, nodding his head.

Her shrewd eyes darted down to the meager offerings leaving Zev to grit his teeth. Just as he expected for the officer to haul him in for violating Halloween law, the girl broke into a gap-toothed smile. "Thank you!" she shouted loud enough to rattle the pictures on the wall.

"You're quite welcome," he sighed, bobbing his head.

The cop wrapped a hand around his daughter, a rare smile flitting with his stern jaw. He nodded his head as if in thanks for Zev not making a scene. "Marie, do you have anything else to say?"

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" she bellowed.

It took Zev a moment to pick his ears up off the floor. As the pair turned to trail down the street of partially lit porch lights, Zevran called, "Back at you."

He left the door open as he collapsed against the wall, sweat building on his palms. Muttering a few choice curses he hoped the cop's child didn't overhear, Zevran was in too far gone of a state to notice the clip of stilettos crossing his driveway.

"Don't tell me you're already down for the night?" Sweet ambrosia poured into his beleaguered ears.

Wiping off the concern across his brow, he turned to take in the golden goddess that dared to touch down upon the earth just for him. "My beautiful lady," Zev yanked up an old timey walking stick, gave it a tap to the ground, spun it on his fingers, and said, "the night has just begun."

"Here." She maneuvered her body, the tight corset that propped those pillowy breasts up into perfect view creaking from the move. As Zevran forced himself to tear away from the twin moons orbiting the sun, he cracked a laugh.

A pair of white plastic cups sat in her hands. "I got the coffee this time," she said, her ruby red smile rising. Zev yanked up one cup, not to drink, but to free up her body. Tugging her across his threshold, the Count pulled her into his arms and savored in the radiant kiss of those crimson lips.

As he broke away, Zevran whispered in her ear, "Let's save these for later. After tonight's escapades, I suspect we shall need the caffeine."

* * *

The flutter of footsteps across their creaking porch drew Solas towards the door. Due to the bell ceasing to work, he had to leave it open but kept the screen door in place. For a brief moment, his eyes flitted over to the woman sitting upright in the chair he pulled to the foyer. She'd placed both hands in her lap atop the layers of quilts over her legs.

Nodding to himself that she was safe, he pushed open the poorly hung door and eyed up a child in grey rags. She craned her head up and a smile burned over her cheeks, "'ello Mr. Solas!"

"Marie," he tipped his head to her in greeting before gesturing that she should step inside.

Her father trailed behind, his back bent to allow him to whisper towards his girl, "Mar, you shouldn't call a grownup by his first name."

"But…but…" The girl plucked out her bottom lip into a full on pout and Solas interceded.

"In fact, I prefer the children call me as such. It's easier for the little ones, gives them a sense that I am a friend and makes the library less scary, Officer Rutherford."

The man digested Solas' words slowly, his eyes blinking in pain as if he'd already been through hell and back for this evening. "As you want," Cullen answered.

Solas never bent to the children but he didn't tower over them either. A slight crook forward of the shoulders and his eyes meeting theirs seemed to put both on an acceptable level playing field. "Now, Marie," he extended a hand behind himself towards the credenza covered in five different stacks, "which would you like?"

"Ooh!" Her eyes lit up as she dashed towards the buffet of prose. Tiny fingers picked up the first offering and she puckered her face, "Nah, read this one already. This one too. And that one. Ah! Dad, look!" From the fifth and final stack she yanked up a blood red cover and read the title aloud, " _Tales To Shiver Your Goosebumps_." Her face gleamed in anticipation of cracking the cover while her father sighed.

"Guess you won't be sleeping tonight," he mumbled to himself even while allowing his daughter to tuck the scary stories into her pail. With the treat secured, she turned from the offerings to eye up the woman that'd been patiently watching them.

The stark eyes of a child cut across from his love's sunken cheeks and dark eyes to the cap. "You got a chicken on your head!" Marie laughed, her hands piling over her mouth.

"Yes, I do," she smiled, dipping the knit chicken complete with dangling yellow legs closer.

"Oh oh, and dad, dad look!" She tugged upon the officer's sleeve causing him to groan.

"I'm looking, Mar."

"Her head's the egg," the grade schooler squealed while pointing towards the smooth dome Solas helped to paint white earlier that night. "That's so funny! Can I have an egg head, Dad?"

It was an innocent request from a child, but it struck deep into the hearts of the adults who knew why such an illusion was possible. "Uh," Cullen scratched at his neck, "ask your mother."

"Kay!" Marie called, rushing back towards the halloween night. No doubt the officer assumed she'd forget her request long before anyone would have to take a razor to her scalp.

Mr. Rutherford locked in place, his back straight as if he was prepared to remind Marie of something, when she spun on her heels. With a shake of her hand she shouted, "Thanks, Mr. Solas. Thanks, Ms. Lavellan."

A rare pink tinged her cheeks as his love waved back to the enthusiastic girl, "It was lovely to see you again Marie."

"We all miss you! The new teacher's a butt."

"Mar!"

"What? He is. Won't even let Bryson play the triangle just 'cause he tried to stuff it up his nose," she said as if it were perfectly acceptable for this Bryson to place percussion instruments into his sinuses. Though, given what Solas would often clean out of bookshelves, that didn't entirely surprise him.

"Regardless," Cullen cuffed his daughter's exuberant collar and tried to tug her into the night, "say thanks and let's go. I'm sure they're very busy."

"Thank you!" Marie repeated, skipping off into the night.

Her father remained behind, watching his daughter. Without the child in the way, the awkwardness rose as he took into account the ill woman. "Thanks for the book."

"It's our pleasure," Solas assured him.

It was crystal clear that the man wanted to say something. Perhaps an assurance, or an idiom about hope, or any other manner of filling the void with words to avoid the truth circling them. His lips puckered through the options, before he shrugged once more.

"Happy Halloween," Cullen declared while sliding off after his ball of energy.

Solas closed the screen door, softly responding with, "And to you as well." As the chill of the night pooled against his palm, he turned back to his love. "Are you cold? Do you need a pillow? I could fetch you some tea…?"

"Solas," she tipped her head, the chicken hat threatening to teeter off of her smooth head. It was her idea, having found the cheap thing in a pharmacy's holiday section. She found it all hilarious, insisting that he paint a crack into the egg even if no one else would see it.

"If you're tired…" he tried once more, but she wouldn't hear it.

"Don't be silly, I love this time of year. And it's nice getting to see the children…" Her unwavering voice punctured, a tear dripping through from the words unsaid. It would take him nothing more than a flick of his wrist to kill the porch light, to bundle her safely back to bed so she could rest away the pain. The books would keep.

Books were one thing that could keep forever.

"May I answer the door next time?" she asked, all the fear shaken from her voice. Her eyes sparkled in a surprising mischief.

Solas glanced from her chair's too far distance, then to the door in confusion.

"You open it and I'll make lots of clucking noises. I want to see if the kids will think the chicken is real," she laughed, already pulling the blanket up higher to try and hide away her body.

"For you love," Solas smiled, his ears picking up the patter of feet across their porch, "I'll do anything."

* * *

Breath puffing from his nose, the police chief fumbled through the decrepit hallway. Frantic hands slashed at the walls ripping off moldy wallpaper as he hunted for an answer. But there was no secret room, no hidden exit, only wood pinning him in to his doom.

"Aaaah!" Merrill screamed as crimson blood splattered against the screen, streaking against the artsy black and white contrast of the police chief currently sans a throat.

Isabela pivoted her head, the thick ruff that cinched her neck nearly catching on a dangling earring. "Were you peeking?"

"No," Merrill assured her, hands worrying the pastel bunny costume she wore. While most would have donned a skin-tight black dress, a pair of ears and a cotton ball on their ass, Merrill went full Easter. Only her tiny face prodded between the hefty polyester suit complete with giant, fake rabbit's feet.

"Then how…?" Hawke asked, pitching forward from the other end of the couch.

Merrill tugged on her floppy ears to explain, "There hadn't been any screams in awhile so I assumed…"

"Oh Merrill," Isabela chuckled. She sucked in a breath, struggling to lean back comfortably with the crimson corset pressing to her ribs. A thin band of tulle made up the illusion of a skirt hiding away her legs, the strip of black ribbon for a belt doing a better job of pretending at modesty. The piece de resistance was a tiny top hat perched upon the left side of her head finishing off the costume of a slutty Renaissance noble.

Isabela bought the ruff cheap from a costume shop attached to a Shakespearean theater and then filled in the rest. She was rather proud of the outfit, and couldn't help but notice how Hawke's eyes kept trailing her amplified curves.

"Hawke," Isabela nudged the woman in the ribs, "you're drooling."

"What?" She whipped her head in surprise, then cupped a hand to her lips. "No I'm not. Ah, buggers."

Isabela laughed at Hawke being caught so easily, then leaned across the couch to whisper in her ear. "I like your costume too."

"You don't think it's too…showy," Hawke fumbled with and Isabela laughed.

"Pirates are rather in right now."

"The skirt barely covers my butt," she muttered before blanching and forcing on a smile.

Isabela laughed, sliding back as if to enjoy the movie while her palm patted Hawke's exposed thigh. "You're a shipwrecked pirate, left in tattered clothing upon the deserted island, thigh high boots, no pants, and…" her gaze drifted to the side to eye up Hawke, "damn near delectable to behold." The reactionary blush was nearly brighter than the fake blood pouring off their tv screen.

Leaning closer to Hawke's cheeks, as much to test the level of warmth Isabela caused, she puckered her lips to plant a black stained kiss when the doorbell went off. "Damn," Isabela groaned. Still, there were little hobgoblins about and best to pay them off before they got smart.

After catching Hawke's eye one last time, Isabela leapt over the couch. She landed with perfect form on her thigh-high stiletto boots and dashed to the door.

A grey something or other stood on the bowing stoop, pail up.

"Trick-Or…"

Isabela grabbed a fistful of candy from the store's bag and dropped them all into her pumpkin. "Here ya go, Happy Ghosts, or whatever," she muttered, her eyes darting back to the screen.

"Thank you," the kid called just as the vengeful witch clawed her way up through the grave to impale her nails into a victim's ankle.

"Uh huh, back at you," Isabela said, already closing the door.

She clipped towards the couch, prepared to make another graceful leap, when she heard the kid proclaim from between the closing gap in the door, "Happy Halloween."

As she sunk back into her preferred groove between Hawke and Merrill, the former asked, "What was that one?"

"A kid."

"I mean what was the costume," Hawke laughed.

"I dunno, some kind of demon angel or something. You know kids," Isabela sat forward, corset be damned. Tenting her fingers together, she declared, "Ooh, here comes the weed-whacker part."

Hawke's arm draped around her shoulders and a smile blossomed over Isabela's lips even as the pair of them drowned in the blood of weed whacked limbs. She moved to nuzzle closer to Hawke's embrace, when Merrill piped up. "When this is over can I pick the next movie?"

"Of course, Kitten," Isabela assured her, lost in the warmth wafting off the lusty pirate when she narrowed her eyes and turned to the girl huddled behind her palms. "What's it called?"

"The Tiny Mouse Who Saved Halloween. It's really scary," Merrill said.

With a laugh, Isabela patted her fluffy head. "I bet it is."

* * *

Dorian glided down the sidewalk, his grace evident to anyone who happened to be passing by. The man behind him however flopped about like a fish strung upon the shore.

"I don't know about this," he tugged at the straps crisscrossing his chest, a crinkle forming upon the usually pristine brow.

Turning on his well-shod heel, Dorian eyed up his love who wore the countenance of a kitten fished from the toilet bowl. "If you keep picking at it, you'll break it," Dorian chuckled, getting a glare for his trouble.

"Good. I look ridiculous in this…what is this?" He dug into the chocolate brown fur circling his hips. Polyester, of course, though in the low-light it didn't appear as tacky as it had in the store.

"You," Dorian brushed a hand over the grumbling man's jawline, rifling through the wild-hair wig. Petulant eyes met his, a tremble rolling across his sinewy form. "Are a Barbarian Slayer-Man."

A snort rolled through his nose, "An entirely fresh, in no way knock off of a copyrighted character."

"More or less," Dorian chuckled. In truth, he'd originally lobbied the idea of the man going as Rocky, but he stomped a foot and shot that down fast. It left Dorian with a gold pair of briefs he only had a few ideas what to do with.

"Why did I let you talk me into this? Why did I even think that…" his love gasped, twisting in the chilling air of the city's bustling night scene. They'd mercifully run into few children dashing about the sidewalks as there wasn't much candy begging to be found inside dance clubs. But the nearer they drew to the main square, the louder the cheerful squeals of dismemberment grew.

"Because," Dorian chuckled, a hand placed to his sequined hip, "it's Halloween. And if _we_ can't get it right, then there's no hope for the rest of them." He gestured towards the Mom & Pop stores proclaiming the celebration of Family Autumn Days on their billboards. No doubt most were trapped at home hoovering kitkats into their mouths and waiting for an excuse to fall asleep on the couch while watching Murder Mouse 17.

"And what part of getting it right involves me being barely dressed in…I can't do this. I can't…" He tried to turn back home, as if it wasn't a trek and a half, but Dorian grabbed his naked arm and held tight.

"What are you talking about?" Dorian laughed, trying to tug the man back on the right path. But he was set in his ways, his body leaning further from him. "Of course you can."

"No, you can. You look…" Pain swirled in the man's voice even as his eyes hungered over Dorian's bare shoulders and chest only met with carefully placed rainbow scales before leading to the skin-tight leggings. His love snickered morosely, his head dangling down, "You're amazing."

"I'm aware," Dorian chuckled. "Also debonair, striking, capable of inducing heart arrhythmia on the street." He was in a lark but as his love crumbled before his eyes so too did Dorian's laughter.

"Not me. Not in this, I look," he tugged at his sinewy form as if it was something to ashamed of. "And all those other men in there, they'll… I'm not good enough to even —"

"Amatus," Dorian curled his palms over his loves cheeks, pink and blue glitter left upon the chiseled jawline of the barbarian. "Your body is perfect."

"Dorian…" he groaned, his captivating eyes trying to roll away.

"And," Dorian forced him to focus, to watch the scale-painted lips form the words burned into his heart, "I have no intention to look at another man, ever again."

A flash of lighting burst through his love's eyes as he weighed the impact of Dorian's statement. But with a laugh, he shook his head, "Come on, Dori…"

Tugging him off of his furred boots, Dorian planted a supple, succulent kiss upon those worried lips. Glitter sparkled between the pair, alighting both cheeks pressed tight as hands tousled through fraudulent wigs to find the welcoming napes below. With a whisper, Dorian slid his mouth to his love's ear to whisper, "I am deathly serious, Amatus. None."

He read the truth in his eyes, the confession Dorian should have saved for when they weren't both in polyester costumes freezing their nipples off on the sidewalk. A smile wound about those lips smeared with Dorian's mermaid lipstick. "Okay," he nodded. "Okay, we can head in."

Assured in that, Dorian released his grip upon his love's cheeks, which was when he felt the curious glare of a child ripping under his skin. Panic seared across his flesh as the small thing must have watched him kiss his boyfriend.

"Hey, hey!" A hand waved through the air, then the feet broke out into a blur. Dorian braced himself for who knew what, when he spotted the second worst sign of the night. A man, certainly of that meatloaf and potato variety, lumbered behind the child. The father of the girl that watched two men make out on the sidewalk.

As panic sent Dorian scampering back, it was his sinewy love — the Barbarian of his heart — who stepped forward. Who readied himself to take the blow.

"Did you drop this?" a small hand held out a plastic seashell, startling both men into confusion.

Dorian spun on his heels, glancing down to find that one had popped free of his fin. "Yes, I did. I…thank you." With trembling fingers, he accepted the lost shell.

"You're welcome!" the child bellowed before taking off towards the main street parade.

The two men were about to breathe a sigh of relief when the father paused from chasing after his daughter. He twisted his chin to them, the fiery-amber eyes blinking in the neon lights. As a hand rustled through the nape of his neck, he gulped, "Kids. They're like squirrels sometimes. Happy Halloween."

"Ha…Happy Halloween," Dorian stuttered back, fingers clinging to the shell.

"Marie, stop running!" the father called, giving chase to his helpful ninja ghost.

"That was not what I expected," his love muttered, a hand still protectively clamped over Dorian's bicep.

"Indeed. Come on, let's get to the safety of the deafening bass, eye-searing lights, and watered-down drinks," Dorian smirked. His love chuckled, but happily followed.

At the door, as Dorian's eyes adjusted from the low light of the street to the randomized, laser-assisted radiance of the club, he caught a familiar form. Very little beyond a pair of red devil wings capped off the taut torso. "Dorian," the known voice called in greeting. "Haven't seen you in ages."

"Felix," Dorian kept his sight pinned to the man's eyes. While they were an oceanic blue, nothing could compare to the ones he wanted. Reaching behind, he locked his arm with his love's, pulling the man forward. "You should meet my boyfriend."

As Felix chattered greetings, Dorian glanced over at those eyes swelling with pride at his eternal promise passing its first test.

* * *

"I'm going to get more," Cassandra reached for her coat, her foot sliding towards the door, when his hand caught her.

"Wait, wait," he called, a laugh in his voice. "How much do we have left?"

She whipped her head over at the snicker on his lips. "Fifty-three pieces."

"Exactly?"

"Yes. Why would I not count it to the exact number?" Her frustrations grew as he seemed incapable of acknowledging the problem.

Another laugh rumbled up his throat and he shook his head. "You're worrying over nothing, Cass."

While most would receive a pop to the nose for using her diminutive name, she sighed and accepted the nickname for a personal choice construed as a pet name. His inability to face the situation however… "If we run low, if we are caught without…"

"Then we turn off the porch light. There's plenty of other houses for the kids to hit," he shrugged, flexing both shoulders against the orange t-shirt that proclaimed he was "Only Here For The Boos." It was awful but the horrific pun made her laugh once so he had to purchase it.

Seeming to think the issue solved, he sidled back to the kitchen to continue babysitting a pot of his personal chili. Still, Cassandra gazed towards the door she took sentinel over. "What of the threat of foul play?"

This was her first technical Halloween as a candy-gifting adult, all of her previous years either spent living in apartments where no one bothered, or her nights elsewhere on the job. Playing the part of average suburban woman was proving more stressful than she could have imagined.

His voice drifted through the twinkling bat lights they hung off the ceiling, "I wouldn't worry about any TPers, they all know you live here."

She curdled her lips and let loose a disgusted snort at such insinuations. A laugh answered her, "Yes, precisely that face."

Whipping her head to the hallway mirror, Cassandra caught the wicked witch snarling as if she intended to crack open some children's bones to feast upon the marrow. As she wiped away the knot of frustration against her features, she frowned and turned to shout towards the kitchen, "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," was his laughing answer. Always laughing. How did she wind up living with such a clown?

Before she could answer the thought, the doorbell rang. Lifting up the treasure chest holding precisely fifty-three pieces of fun-sized candy bars, Cassandra opened the door. A small child in a sparkling pink tiara and grey cassock lofted her bucket.

Her cheeks were already stained in both glitter and exuberance as she shouted, "Trick-Or-Treat!"

"Yes, hello," Cassandra stomped forward, flinching as she opened up the coveted lid. "You may take one piece and only one!" Her eyes zoomed in as the child's fingers rifled through the upper stack of malted milk balls. It dove past the tootsie rolls to latch around a mini-chocolate bar shaped like a coffin.

"Oooh, I like this," she smiled wide, depositing her transaction safely in the pumpkin.

Closing the lid on the treasure, Cassandra hugged the chest to her hip. "Why don't skeletons like Halloween candy?" she asked the winged fairy child.

Her nose crinkled, her head swiveling to the parent tasked with accompanying her. "I…I dunno?"

"Because they do not have the stomach for it!" Cassandra pronounced with a big smile waiting for the laugh. Slowly, the girl spun fully towards her father, her jaw clacking in thought. It must have flown over her head.

"It is a joke, see, because skeletons do not have stomachs as they are only bones," she explained, watching for the light of realization.

"Yeah…got that part, um…" The child leaned back almost as if she didn't know what to make of the situation.

"Then you laugh," Cassandra snorted, the girl's eyes opening wide in terror.

Paddling backwards on her heels, she made a beeline for the door even as her eyes never left Cassandra's withering face. "Thank you," repeated from the child's lips as she dashed out into the Halloween night. Cassandra followed, reaching up to close the door.

At the step, she overheard the girl lean close to her father and whisper, "That house is scary!"

Delighted, Cassandra slunk back to wait for the next batch of children to terrify. She was excellent at this Halloween thing.

* * *

A flatbed dusted in straw and holding three hay bales rolled past the crowd. Anders turned, his boredom transforming into curiosity. Out of the tiny shed — no doubt swiped from a hardware store parking lot — that claimed most of the trailer came five adults all dressed in feathers. When the cringe-inducing first bars to "Turkey in the Straw" blared out of speakers lining the float, Anders sunk deeper into the crowd.

He had too much dignity to watch grown adults pretend to peck and flap their arms for the entertainment of no one. Dipping his fingers into his coat, he ruffled against a spot of black that'd been purring contentedly for the past three floats.

"Here you are," a voice cut through the crowd, her body contorting to shift past the clumps of people taking ownership of the sidewalk.

Anders leaned closer, a comforting hand sliding along the small of her back as he pecked a quick kiss to her cheek. She smiled, cracking the skeleton makeup she began the day with.

"Work was a nightmare, and the streets even worse," she complained, already falling into step beside him.

Happy to provide physical support, Anders locked his leg in and cinched her tighter to take her weight. The pair watched the turkey float come to a jerky stop before the railroad tracks. It seemed as if there was a bit of a problem getting the overtly large foul over the bump. Two of the turkeys leapt off the flatbed to try and assist.

"I can't believe you wanted to see this," she laughed, jabbing at the other adults bundled up in their fall comfiest and tackiest to watch the parade.

"It's this or hide in the dark so no children peek in through the window and demand candy," Anders responded, his head pivoting through the crowd. The din covered over his disdain, hiding away nearly all of his secrets until the murmurs and gasps faded and a tiny meow broke.

"Anders!" she chastised, a hand worrying into his locked-in bicep. "You didn't…"

He could have feigned ignorance, or pretended to hear it elsewhere, but another more pronounced mewling erupted from below his coat. Accepting defeat, he opened the jacket to reveal the tiny eyes so young they were still blue staring up at him.

"What?" He caught _that_ look wafting off her. "She would have been lonely in that house all by herself. Isn't that right, Mid-Knight?"

While he thought the name genius, she had other opinions on the pun. Mostly eye rolling. But, as she scratched Mid-Knight's head — kicking off another purring rumble — she sighed. "And you thought bringing the kitten to the parade was a smarter idea?"

"A chance for her to see the world. To take in this fall air with others dressed in honor of her." He jerked his chin to one of numerous cat costumes in attendance.

Her eyes rolled as she shook her head, "You know that isn't why…"

The mewling increased as Mid-Knight, tired of her cramped surroundings, clawed her way up Anders' arm. As she excised the jacket's shadows, the light landed upon a tiny purple cape knotted around her neck.

"You dressed her up?" she laughed.

"It is Halloween," was his answer. "Everyone else seemed to be doing it and I didn't want her to feel left out."

"You are…" Her voice fell away as she watched Mid-Knight ascend to the peak of Anders' shoulders. Once at the summit she gave a micro-roar that sounded more like a squeak. "As long as I live, I will never understand you," she whispered, a finger brushing back the whiskers. The kitten with onyx fur, a bulging belly, and warm pillow to sleep on at night mewled at the tender care from both of her parents.

"Is that a bad thing?" Anders asked, brushing his nose against her forehead.

Inscrutable eyes burned in his as she entwined her arm around his back. "No, it's not," she said, her lips pressing into his. White greasepaint threatened to flake off into his mouth, but as the heat from her body enveloped his, Anders didn't care.

"Look Dad, a kitty!"

That shook Anders from his tender moment, his eyes whipping around to find whoever shouted that, while his hand cupped tight to Mid-Knight. A child dressed in grey had a finger pointed at him, her eyes wide as saucers as she stared in rapture at the tiny kitten.

The man behind her groaned, "No Mar, we are not getting a kitten."

"But, but…" she pouted as he pulled her through the crowd.

"Sorry about that," he tried to apologize even as the pair vanished towards the middle of the Halloween Fair. "She really loves animals."

The child was not to be stopped. "What about a puppy?"

"No."

Even as their voices faded to the distance, Anders could hear, "Bryson has a spider. They're not very messy."

"Maker's sake," the man groaned, "ask your mother."

Anders helped usher Mid-Knight back into the safety of his coat, fingers trailing through the ball of fluff. "Do you ever regret choosing to not have children?" he asked, framing the question as if he had no part in that.

It was a biological imperative, ingrained inside of people to want to care for something tiny and helpless to propagate the species. One he thought himself above until he spent an entire night combing the kitten's matted fur and feeding her sips of milk until she could manage on her own.

A comforting hand wrapped around his back, her forehead bouncing against his. "No," she whispered, bringing a soft smile to his lips. "You two are enough of a handful."

* * *

"Damn tap's run dry," Blackwall grumbled, cranking off the spigot for the draft as he glanced back at the customer that ordered it.

"So…" His partner in more ways than one crammed a hand to her hip, the other palm holding a tray stuffed with glasses above her head.

"So it shouldn't be out. Not by half. Spigot musta clogged," he muttered, yanking on the handle. Outside their some-would-say dingy but he preferred homey bar stood a hundred shivering butts. The front half were glued to the spectacle, some shaking light-up wands a grifter working the crowd sold for $5 a pop.

As she deposited the last of the dinner rush into the sink, she washed all the stale beer and clotted cheese off her hands. The scent of that frilly pumpkin stench bubbled up with each depression of the ghost shaped soap bottle. She liked getting "festive."

"Well, ya gonna fix it or glare at it?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder. Blackwall didn't dress up for Halloween, no matter how much his regulars pried into trying to get him into this or that. Her on the other hand… A velvet witch's hat topped off her head, the tip often swiping through the stretch of spiderwebs she taped up to the ceiling.

Brought in the customers better if they got into the holiday mood. Blackwall tried to not shudder at the thought of spiders actually hiding inside the fake webs. Be a great way to go unnoticed next to the plastic ones. "Fine, just got to get my tools. Gimme a sec, Murdock."

"No problem," Murdock rumbled in his gravel voice, his fingers fishing a couple orange & black coated peanuts from the bowl.

Certain no customer was about to brandish a gun and demand the register be emptied, Blackwall dipped to a knee. His bones creaked from the extension, but he soldiered on through. Sliding back the particleboard door that hid away the less interesting aspects of bar ownership, Blackwall spotted his red toolbox.

Without a thought, he reached into the darkness and gripped onto the handle. He had to keep an eye on the box while tugging it forward lest it tip up and shatter the wine glasses practically no one used.

From deep inside the shadowed shelf, darkness chittered . Eight glowing eyes sized him up and a damn tarantula-sized murder spider launched from underneath the bar. "Shit!" Blackwall hissed, the toolbox clattering to the ground as he leapt backward. His spine smacked into the sink, nearly taking down her legs.

The killer spider paused mid-leap as if it could fly, its legs twitching a death threat in the sticky air. Blackwall pawed for anything to smush it, his fingers enveloping a bottle of wine. He held it aloft, prepared to crush the unholy arachnid, when a laugh rolled up his wife's legs. _What?_

Forgetting the bottle, but not the killer spider, Blackwall stared up to find tears of laughter streaming down her face. _No. No, she didn't…_

"Did it work?" Murdock asked, the bastard peering down at him over the bar.

"Like a charm," she said. Not caring about the spider the size of a grown man's fist, she bent down towards it. Blackwall extended the bottle higher, ready to strike, when she began to push it back to the ground with her finger.

"It's a fake, see." The spider was re-attached to a base hidden inside the shelf, his wife extending the whole thing out in the palm of her hand. "For Halloween."

Blackwall sniffed but still wouldn't take his eyes off it. Be like a spider to pretend to be not real then suddenly come to life and bite everyone. Slowly, he returned the wine bottle to the rack. "I knew that."

"Sure ya did," Murdock chuckled as his wife returned the fake-spider to the man who no doubt instigated this. "How bad did you wet yourself?"

"Very funny. Maybe I should call in your tab?" Blackwall bit back.

"Hey, no reason to get cruel. It was all a bit of fun." The man returned to his peanuts, fearing that Blackwall might make good on his threat.

His wife glided over to the tap and, using her magic, undid whatever clogged it with a few twists. As the beer poured freely, she filled up Murdock's glass. Blackwall draped a hand to her shoulders, his head sliding closer to whisper, "Was that payback?"

"Yup."

"Suppose that's fair."

Flipping off the tap, she spun on her heel, nary a drop of beer sloshing free as her eyes burned into his. "Not by a long shot. Here ya go, Murdock." With an expert wing, she slid the beer down the bar into the man's waiting mitts.

"So it was one duck," Blackwall complained. "I didn't think you even used that..what was it?"

"Antique sewing table," her words spat venom, daring him to keep going. Blackwall had enough sense to swallow the thought for fear of more and perhaps real spiders in his future.

Bouncing her hip into his side, she prodded at his chest. "Well, what ya got to say to that?"

He was rescued by the bell, some poor sod escaping the parade just in time to save him. As Blackwall looked up he spotted a thirty-something mostly clean-cut sort holding a little girl's hand.

"Please tell me you have a bathroom!" he pleaded, looking near tears.

"Course we do," his wife stepped in. "This way, sweetie." She picked up the little girl's hand along with the bathroom key and led her through the backroom.

"I saw a kitty!" the girl cried, one hand struggling to keep her candy bucket from spilling as she danced on her feet.

"That's nice," were his wife's final words before the door to the backroom and bathrooms swung shut.

Uncertain what to do, Blackwall picked up his trusty killing-time cloth and began to scrub at the bar. "Long night?" he asked the new customer.

"A bit, yes." He buffeted through his blonde hair, digging into the nape of his neck.

"Want something?" Blackwall looked up to find the man studying the menu. It was obvious he was weighing the idea as silence wound around the bar, but the man shook his head.

"I shouldn't. I'm…" he tipped his head in the direction where the kid vanished, "on the clock, so to speak."

The three men embraced the awkward silence that fell around them. There wasn't even a game to distract, the TV only able to pick up the stupid local parade happening right outside his doors. A few lip pops, finger snaps, and half-hearted whistles were all that filled the air until the water rushing sound revived them.

Peeling out of the backroom came the kid, her eyes wide. "Dad, I need a quarter."

"Why?"

"For the balloon machine!" she all but shouted into every dark corner. "One glows in the dark!"

"Glows in the…" His face contorted from confusion, to understanding, to pure-grade panic in five seconds. "Nope, no, we need to catch the rest of the parade." The father latched onto his kid, dragging her away from the allure of playing with the condom machine. Blackwall couldn't hide a chuckle under his beard at the obvious distress.

At the door, the kid paused, adjusted the bee wings on her back, and called out, "Happy Halloween!"

"Yes, Mar, come on. We need to get home soon. There's school tomorrow," he scolded while bundling her up into the chilly night.

As the pair of them vanished out the door, Blackwall caught his wife haunting around the edges of the bar. "You're not gonna scare me again," he declared, lashing out fast to grab her hand. "So you can stop hiding spiders everywhere." Opening up her palm, he spotted a multitude of the rubbery things, their legs twitching unholy-like in her grasp.

While she dumped out her haul onto the bar, her other hand began to creepy crawly up his shoulder. Blackwall dug into his boots, not about to give a sign he was disturbed, when she grabbed the nape of his neck. Warm breath twirled through his ear as she breathed, "That so?"

"I, uh, yes. Yes it is," he flat out lied.

"Well, we'll have to see," a grin of pure mischief twisted over his wife's face. "After all, the night's not over." As she spun off, her hips undulating in those tight jeans, she cackled, "Not by a long shot."

With a groan, Blackwall stared into Murdock's empty glass. "I hate Halloween."

* * *

Bundled into his jacket, Fenris glared at the multitude of people swarming what was usually a quiet part of the city this time of night. He gripped tighter to the plastic sack holding the few essentials he just had to pick up from a convenience store. It was the closest one to his rat's nest of a place and apparently opened up onto some kind of major festival happening a few blocks from his door.

The mass stood beside the crosswalk, children hanging off their parents and chattering while waiting for the light to change. He tried his best to blend in, but a few of the tiny faces painted to look like devils and witches kept trying to catch his eye. It didn't help that damn near everyone was carrying some light-up wand that turned his white hair radioactive.

When the horde of chittering children all began to hop on their feet, he glanced up to spot a tractor rolling down the street. Slowly. Still, last thing he needed was a massive tractor trailer to crush his body until all they found left behind was a wart removal cream. Fenris dutifully waited, wafting on his legs, when the tractor's barely rolling tires came to a definite stop.

Of course it was meant to pick up the waiting children. Cursing and snarling to himself, as the mass moved to climb onto the hay bales for a fun trip around town, Fenris began to huff across the street. He got halfway when a horn shattered the air.

He whipped his head to the right, fearing a car blew through the light, but only darkness waited. Confused, he pivoted to the left and tried to glare through the haze of the tractor's headlights. A hand nestled inside a red flannel jacket jerked wildly at him.

"Hey, hey Fenris!" the driver called. As he eased into the darker, easier to see through shadows, he recognized the woman from the farm. Hawke. As if he could forget her name.

"Didn't expect to find you here," she shouted to be heard over the putter of the tractor engine.

"Oh?" he asked, stepping closer to try and be heard. She loomed above him in her seat, orange painted over her face with symmetrical black lines to try and turn her into a pumpkin. As Fenris glanced to her wrists to find a bit of fake straw stuff in place, he realized she was a friendly scarecrow.

Hawke shrugged, glancing back to the kids being helped into place by their parents. "You didn't strike me as the family friendly type is all." He frowned at the accurate assessment and she rebounded. "I mean, I could be wrong. Maybe you love face paint."

"Not as much as you, it seems."

He winced after the words left, fearing they may be taken as a cruel remark, but Hawke laughed. "The lady who runs the parade insisted. We all have to be in costume so the kids can recognize us. Which makes as much sense as it sounds."

Hawke spun over her shoulder and glanced at the mass of kids sitting on the straw. "You all seated?" she called to them, receiving a chorus of excited yes's. "Looks like I gotta go." She shrugged as if sad to be parting his acidic company. "Unless…"

Fenris was already stepping back to allow her exit, when Hawke's burlap gloved hand caught his. He froze in place, lost, as she tugged upon their soft tether.

"Come on up," she laughed, and Fenris gave into her whims. His foot caught upon the runner along the tractor, his body having to stand at an angle to not slip. It left him only able to stare down at Hawke.

"I'd offer you a seat, but…" she waved around the one-person tractor while pulling whatever made the thing lurch awake.

Fenris' body shuddered, moving with the increase in speed as they got underway. "Is this safe?" he asked, glancing back at the kids all waving around bags crammed with treats.

"Sh…oot," Hawke fumbled to avoid cursing, causing Fenris to blush. "This thing's only going five miles an hour. Should be fine. I mean, assuming you can handle standing."

A smile twisted up his lips as he gazed down at the brash woman. "I've had about thirty or so years of practice."

"Good. Good." She nodded her head, her own pumpkin face split into a Jack O'lantern grin. When they hit a bump in the road, Hawke yanked her eyes away from his to focus on the path ahead. "So, what brings you out tonight?"

"I…I had to stop by the store and didn't realize that this…" Fenris waved his hands around at the hordes of costumed children consuming the world.

"Harvest Festival of Souls," Hawke said.

"Really?"

"Well, it's what we call it when none of the pearl-clutchers are in range," she said with a laugh while guiding the tractor and trailer around a turn. It was like shifting a river barge, the tractor swinging wide into the other lane of traffic which Fenris just realized was probably cordoned off for this.

"My family's been doing this for years, ferrying kids from one neighborhood to the next. Keeps 'em safe from cars. Then the little festival in the middle popped up, a quick parade, and it became a whole thing," she shrugged as if it was a simple item in her agenda but her cheeks were glowing. The clear enjoyment of this was infecting even Fenris, who barely noticed his arms vibrating to the point of numbness from gripping onto the back of the tractor.

As Hawke focused on the next turn, Fenris took in the families. Most of them were of the soup ad variety, fathers and mothers tending to cherubic children and infants in strollers. Kids attempting to sneak a candy when their exhausted parents weren't looking. The scent of hay and fresh-dug earth filled the fall air. It was perfect.

"Guessing they don't do this out where you come from," Hawke said and he grimaced at the truth. "I mean," she spoke fast, "most towns don't get that into Halloween anymore."

"Yes, it's…" He watched the kids in their demon costumes once more before honing on her eyes, "it's new to me."

"Well, this is nothing. Wait until you see our Christmas Extravaganza," Hawke chuckled.

Fenris bent closer to be able to hear her better. "Do they have you pulling Santa's sleigh?"

Her exuberant eye rolled up to him and she winked. "Who else would you trust to get Ol' Saint Nick to the ball on time?"

"That's an interesting mix of metaphors," Fenris admitted even as he fell under her charm.

The tractor rolled to a stop, and Hawke turned around to call, "Okay kids, here's the drop-off point." Tiny bodies leapt from the straw with the bigger ones lumbering to their weary feet. Still, quite a few called their thanks to the driving scarecrow before departing. Fenris watched Hawke watching them, her face relaxed as if she'd look forward to this job for the entire year.

After the last of the kids stepped away to the sidewalk far from the big wheels, Hawke spun to start up the tractor. "Should I…depart as well?" he gulped, realizing they were alone and how close his body kept nearly bouncing against hers.

"Nah, I'll get you back to where I plucked you up from, no problem."

"Thank you," Fenris tipped his head, wondering if he shouldn't dash back to the straw, when the tractor rolled up to the next horde of children.

"Come on up!" Hawke shouted, waving her hands to the quivering but polite mass. As they all scattered up the stairs, parents often holding them steady, Fenris felt Hawke's eyes peering at him.

"It's nice seeing you again," she said.

He hadn't made good on her offer, time and…the ability to muster up the energy slipping away. Though, he thought of it often. Wondered if it was just her way to get rid of the strange man that wouldn't leave her tractor.

"It is," Fenris smiled, his heart melting at the warmth in her eyes.

Hawke opened her mouth as if to whisper something, when she caught a timer on the tractor. "Everybody in your seats?" she shouted, turning back to the kids. At the cheer, once again they began their rounds back to where they came.

Fenris more easily settled into the pull of the engine, his muscles loose as he rocked beside her. After making a bend in the road, Hawke said, "You should stop by the farm. With the autumn season gone we've got so much blighted apple butter left. You can take your body weight in it if you want." Her eyes drifted up and down his form as if trying to determine how it correlated to apple butter volume. "Please."

With a smile, Fenris promised, "I'd love to."

* * *

The flimsy, straw-strewn cart rattled awake just as Morrigan placed her backside into the bale. She tried to not imagine what horrors and fluids lurked inside the straw given the amount of children that passed through. Whoever was driving this kept her attention half upon the road and half on the silver-haired man clinging beside her. Still…it was nice to be off her feet.

"Mum," Kieran chirped up, lifting his pillowcase. His was borrowed from the spare bedroom while the other children all seemed to carry around pre-purchased bags. An interesting way to burn their money.

"What is it?" Morrigan asked, well aware of the other children clumped together in their own groups. There'd been various ages trolling up and down the streets, begging for sustenance, and forming based upon size. Kieran slipped into the middle of the pack, hoisted up only by his mother who didn't know what to make of this tradition.

But her son heard of it in school and wanted to try.

Kieran pawed at the whiskers prodding off his nose, a frown twisted about his lips that took up shop the moment he spotted all the other boys in the fraudulent muscle suits of superheroes. His costume was far more intriguing in comparison to anything the other children dreamt up.

After staring deep into his pillowcase, Kieran shook his head, "Nothing." A silence she was coming to dread with each passing month once again drifted over his brow. How was she going to deal with a teenager?

"Hey, Dad, Dad, look!" Across from them, a child in a highwayman's mask yanked out two thin tubes and stuck them to both sides of her lips. Slapping her hands together she made ungodly walrus noises.

"Mar, put those back in your bucket," her father chastised her. "We have to check them first, you know."

"Fine," she rolled her eyes even under the black mask and tried to spin around in her seat to stare at the plastic graveyard passing.

"And sit in place, you don't want to fall out," the blonde man ordered, jabbing a finger at the straw.

The frown deepened until she glanced up to spot the area beside Kieran. Leaping to her feet, she asked, "Can I sit here?"

As Kieran gulped from the unexpected attention, she plummeted to her butt, her eyes wide while a series of skeletons dancing in the wind passed by. Morrigan kept a close eye upon her boy, but the girl didn't seem to want anything beyond a better view of the decorations. Her father stretched wide, as most males are prone to doing, his arm sliding across the lip of the cart to where his daughter had been.

"Ooh, Dad, we need to go there." The girl jabbed towards one of the darkening neighborhoods she must not have traipsed through yet.

"Marie, you know the rules. It's nearly 8."

The eye roll was becoming dangerously familiar to Morrigan as the girl busied about in her bucket. She seemed to be taking stock as Kieran sat bolt upright beside her. After the crinkle of wrappers, which seemed to go on forever, the girl yanked up a white colored chocolate and pulled a face.

"I hate these! Ugh. Coconut!"

"I like coconut," Kieran squeaked. The girl's rabid eyes whipped away from inspecting her haul to take in the boy. They looked to be about the same age, which gave the girl an advantage. Morrigan tensed, prepared to protect her son from the attack of a child who didn't approve of his preferences.

"You want it?" the girl asked, surprising both mother and boy.

"I…I'm not supposed to take things," he mumbled, even as his fingers twitched above the chocolate coconut confection.

"What? But it's halloween…" Her head swiveled to her father as if to ask the man to tell Kieran to accept the stranger's candy. To Morrigan's surprise, he remained out of it, his head swiveling around to take in the rising moon.

"Okay, okay, what if we trade? I got tons of gross candy you might like."

"That," Kieran's eyes drifted up to Morrigan for a moment before landing right in the girl's. "That sounds fun."

She snorted and crammed her head down into her bucket. An exchange that could put shareholders to shame broke out upon that hay bale. Morrigan kept a close eye, making certain her son didn't get swindled, but the girl seemed to be on the up and up. After she happily gave up her coconut for gobstoppers, Kieran honed in on a cherry nut chocolate.

"Hm, I think that's all of 'em I got," the girl announced. "Ooh, what about this?" From her bucket she plucked up an almost square shaped candy in an orange wrapper. "Do you like these?"

Kieran gulped, no doubt sensing the same as Morrigan that there was more at play from the sly look in the girl's eyes. "I don't know?" Kieran admitted.

Through the air between them, she began to push the orange candy closer before yanking it back and laughing. "That was a trick." Her face fell into a deadly serious pallor to announce, "No one likes these. Taste like vomited up peanut butter." As the two kids broke into a chuckle at that, the girl yanked her arm back to try and banish the disgusting candy.

"Mar!" her father thundered. "Do not throw things."

"Fine," she grumbled, her hand plummeting to her lap. "You take it then." With a final groan, he reached over to pick the Mary Jane from her palm. Unwrapping it, the man crammed it into his mouth, causing the girl to squeal. "Ew, Da-ad!"

Kieran joined in the laughter, his cheeks turning pink. As the girl leaned back against the slats of the cart, so too did Morrigan's son. Her eyes drifted over to the boy, a coveted sucker swirling around in her mouth. In a voice that belonged on a fifty something gazing down at the up-and-coming ingenue she asked, "This your first time?"

"Ye…yes," he nodded, gripping tighter to his pillowcase. Morrigan waited for the girl to explain how she sussed the information out, but the child pivoted to a new thought.

"I like your costume," she declared before asking, "You're a mouse?"

Kieran flinched, his fingers patting at his grey lap. "It's a…yes," he squeaked out a lie.

"He's a vole," she answered for her boy, who'd painstakingly worked to pick just the right animal for his first Halloween.

The girl blinked for a bit, staring at Morrigan with a face as if the child had to sneeze before she turned to Kieran. "Wha's a vole?"

Kieran instantly launched into his thorough and detailed information on the life and times of voles. To Morrigan's surprise, the girl seemed to be listening.

At least she was polite enough to not interrupt except to add, "Christine has a chinchilla. It's called M&Ms…" She paused for emphasis before shouting, "Cause its poop looks like M&Ms."

"Wombats have square poop," Kieran said, his eyes lighting up as he tried to cling to this rare interaction with a peer.

"No way! That's hilarious. Ooh, I have to text Mom that," she reached over for her father's phone but he shook his head.

"You can tell her at home, Mar. Tell her tomorrow."

The girl crossed her arms, clearly upset at having to save the wombat feces story for later. At that moment, the entire tractor jerked to a standstill. The scarecrow driving turned away from the silver-haired man who'd been keeping her fascinating company to announce, "Okay kiddies, end of the line unless you want to run into the bogey man!" Her scary laugh after left much to be desired, but it sent the younger kids scampering off the trailer and to the street.

Much more slower, the jaded older children rose to their feet. Kieran locked both his hands around his pillowcase which he'd been lugging about as if it were a treasure chest. But he drifted closer to the new girl who marched ahead of her father without fear.

"Hey," the girl called as she landed upon the street and spun up to watch Kieran step down the ladder, "do you go to Sky or Central?"

"Uh, Sky," Kieran glanced to Morrigan who nodded. They hadn't been in town long enough for him to learn the full name of his elementary school.

"Then you go to school with Christine. Oh, you have to tell her about the wombat poop. Or I will. It's so funny!" She spun on her heels, clearly sugared to the gills.

"Th…I will," Kieran said as if making a blood vow.

"Cool! Dad's making that face again. I gotta go. Wait, wait," she paused and struck a pose. "Can you guess what my costume is?"

Kieran gulped, taking in the tiara, the netting based wings, the grey sack of a dress with ripped off rhinestones along the sides, and finally the mask. He shook his head slowly, wincing at failing the question.

"You're a bandit fairy princess," Morrigan announced.

The girl's eyes went wide as saucers, her hands slapping together in both a clap and shock. "You got it right. Well, it was robber fairy princess dinosaur but Dad made me lose my shoes." She jabbed an accusing finger at her father who looked about to pass out to the street in exhaustion.

"Yes, I'm the worst creature to stalk the earth. Come on, Marie. Let's get you home and in bed before your mother beats us back," he grumbled, a hand picking up his daughter's waning bucket of candy.

Not about to let her haul vanish, she skipped after, but turned to wave to the vanishing Kieran and Morrigan. "You're so funny. Happy Halloween!"

With a final rumble of the engine, the tractor and trailer pulled away, leaving mother and son standing alone below the single pool of a yellow spotlight. The white moon hung above them, a trio of crows scattering across it in silhouette.

"Mom," Kieran whispered, his hands bouncing the candy-sack up and down.

"Yes, son?"

A smile she hadn't seen in the days since his father had to return to work warmed his face. "I really like this holiday."

As Morrigan gazed out across the porches housing flickering squash, the macabre dancing in the wind, and children free to act out their wild imagination, she too smiled. "As do I."


	13. Chapter 13

One by one, the flickering orange souls burst from their tethers and fled via smoky haze into the night. Darkness parted along the somnolent street, each pumpkin doused as the owners turned in for November's embrace. A solitary lamppost struggled to catch, its halogen aura snapping like a near empty lighter.

Stepping across the desaturated yellow lines of the road walked a figure. Nearly seven feet tall, with no visible limbs or face, it lurched from the darkness into the unholy light. No children gazed upon it, for they were all slumbering in bed with dreams of vampires, ghouls, and goblins in their heads.

No adults dare glance, their stomachs turned acrid from the holy reminders of death lurking in every nook and cranny of their lives.

There was no sound save the rustle of barren, desiccated leaves crackling against the road as the wind rolled them to the gutter; and the puff of breath from the lurching creature.

No stars dare shine upon such a wretch combing the streets of All Hallows Eve upon the stroke of twelve. Even the fair moon eclipsed itself safely behind a cocoon of clouds. The world gave the monster what it wanted most: darkness.

"Wait, wait, wait!" the head cried. The flesh where its neck should be rustled as if snakes twisted under the skin.

"What's wrong?" the body asked, the would-be sternum erupting outward and twisting up to the night's sky.

"I can't see a thing through these small holes." The head wiggled a small pinkie through the eye slits, trying to enlarge its vision.

"Don't worry, Widdles," the body assured her, "this is good a place as any."

In a flurry of white, reminiscent of the oncoming snow about to desolate the land, the creature ripped off its skin to reveal…a small woman perched upon a blonde's shoulders. The lower of the two carried a giant sack around her arm, this one bulging not with treats but the other option afforded to the night.

As the ex-head landed upon the road, she patted her hands and reached into the bag overflowing with rolls of toilet paper. "Are you sure this is smart?"

"It's a wozzat, traditional. Ceremonial," Sera grinned, the smile stretched as wide as if it'd been carved into her face. Weighing a roll in her hands, she fished out two more and began to juggle them. "Don't give the treats we're owed then…can't let them stuffed shirts get so full of themselves they forget. There's consequences, after all."

Dagna accepted the explanation, eyeing up a colored chalk mix she'd been working on. After twisting to take in the picturesque porches and front yards, the pristine eaves and egg-less roofs of the neighborhood street, she asked Sera, "Where do we even start?"

"That one," Sera jabbed to the right. "Missy Prissy Party-Pooper who won't give candy to no kid over twelve." Getting the weight of the toilet paper in her hand just right, she lobbed the first roll not into the skeletal tree but against a plaque proclaiming this to be the house of Madame de Fer.

The hanging sign creaked upon its hinges, the TP clattering to the soggy ground while both women froze. But no lights flickered on inside the house, no one knew they were on a mission for mischief. As the calendar rolled into All Soul's Day, inviting the spirits of the lost, the forgotten, and the trod-upon to once again walk the earth, Sera and Dagna gave them party decorations fit for an Empress.

With winds twisting the toilet paper ribbons into knots and chalk messages of Dagna's rather perky variety claiming the driveway, a solitary voice whispered through the chill of the oncoming winter.

"Happy Halloween."


End file.
